Thunderbird GNOME theme

A GNOME theme for Thunderbird

This theme follows latest GNOME Adwaita style.

Warning:

This theme is a work in progress.

Disclaimer:

Be aware that this theme might do things that are not supported by upstream Thunderbird. If you face an issue while using this theme, report it here first or test if it is repoducible in vanilla Thunderbird.

If you are a software distribution maintainer, please do not ship this changes by default to your users unless you made extremely clear that they are using a modified version of Thunderbird UI.

Description

This is a bunch of CSS code to make Thunderbird look closer to GNOME's native apps.

Getting in Touch

Matrix room: #firefox-gnome-theme:matrix.org

Thunderbird versions support

The main branch of this repo supports the current Thunderbird stable release 115.

Theme versions complatible with older Thunderbird releases are preserved as git tags.

Installation

Installation script

1. Clone this repo and enter folder:

   git clone https://github.com/rafaelmardojai/thunderbird-gnome-theme && cd thunderbird-gnome-theme

2. Checkout a git branch or tag if needed, otherwise use main and ignore this step.

   git checkout beta # Set beta branch
   git checkout v115 # Set v115 tag

3. Run installation script

   Auto install script

   This script will lookup Thunderbird profiles location and enable a theme variant for your GTK theme if it exists.

   ./scripts/auto-install.sh

   Install script

   ./scripts/install.sh # Standard
   ./scripts/install.sh -f ~/.var/app/org.mozilla.Thunderbird/.thunderbird # Flatpak

   Script options

   • -f <thunderbird_folder_path> optional

     • Set custom Thunderbird folder path.
     • Default: ~/.thunderbird

   • -p <profile_name> optional

     • Set custom profile name, for example e0j6yb0p.default-nightly.
     • Default: All the profiles found in the thunderbird folder

   • -t <theme_name> optional

     • Set the colors used in the theme.
     • Default: Adwaita.
     • Options: adwaita, maia.

Required Thunderbird preferences

We provide a user.js configuration file in configuration/user.js that enable some preferences required by this theme to work.

You should already have this file installed if you followed one of the installation methods, but in any case be sure this preferences are enabled under Thunderbird's Config Editor:

• toolkit.legacyUserProfileCustomizations.stylesheets

  This preference is required to load the custom CSS in Thunderbird, otherwise the theme wouldn't work.

• svg.context-properties.content.enabled

  This preference is required to recolor the icons, otherwise you will get black icons everywhere.

For other non essential preferences checkout configuration/user.js.

Updating

You can follow the installation script steps again to update the theme.

Uninstalling

1. Go to your profile folder. Go to Menu > Help > More Troubleshooting Information > Application Basics > Profile Directory > Open Directory)
2. Remove chrome folder.
3. Remove the unwanted preferences from your user.js inside your profile folder. The install script append the needed prefs in that file, you can check what preferences does it append by checking configuration/user.js in this repo.

Enabling optional features

Optional features can be enabled by creating new boolean preferences in the config editor.

1. Go to the Thunderbird settings
2. Search for config and click on the Config Editor button when it is displayed
3. Type the key of the feature you want to enable
4. Set it as a boolean and click on the add button
5. Restart Thunderbird

Features

• Hide tabbar gnomeTheme.hideTabbar

  Hides tabs bar with the menu bar. If you press Alt or enable menu bar it will be visible again.

• Normal width tabs gnomeTheme.normalWidthTabs

  Use normal width tabs as default Thunderbird.

• Active tab contrast gnomeTheme.activeTabContrast

  Add more contrast to the active tab.

Credits

Developed by Rafael Mardojai CM and contributors. Based on the Firefox GNOME theme.

Donate

If you want to support development, consider donating via PayPal. Also consider donating upstream, Thunderbird & GNOME.