This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Can I lock the layout in Thunderbird?

  • 5 respostas
  • 1 has this problem
  • 4 views
  • Last reply by firefox545

more options

My elderly father keeps accidentally hitting buttons in Thunderbird that changes the layout and other view options. Is it possible to lock these formatting options so that a user cannot change them?

My elderly father keeps accidentally hitting buttons in Thunderbird that changes the layout and other view options. Is it possible to lock these formatting options so that a user cannot change them?

All Replies (5)

more options

There are add-ons that deal with specific items, such as No Message Pane Sort (which actually works for the Threads Pane), and you can hide toolbars from the View menu. Entire menus and submenus can be hidden with the use of userChrome.css.

If you set a layout and want to back it up in case it's changed, copy the xulstore.json file in the profile folder.

more options

Thanks for your reply. This add-on only disables sorting columns, but not the ability to click other things under view -> toolbars and view -> layout, or grabbing the the lines btwn panes and moving those

more options

You may need to use the info in the userChrome.css link provided by sfhowes.

Specifically...if you want to remove the 'Toolbars' and 'Layout' items from the 'View' option then do this.

In Thunderbird:

  • Help > Troubleshooting Information
  • click on 'Open folder' button

a new window opens showing the contents of your Profile folder.

  • Close Thunderbird now - this is important.
  • Create new folder and call it chrome note the spelling - use a lower case 'c' It should be in the same place as the 'Mail' folder. See image below as guide.
  • open Notepad
  • Copy everything - all the text between lines below and paste it into the Notepad document.

/*
 
* Do not remove the @namespace line -- it's required for correct functioning
 */

@namespace url("http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul"); 

/* Hide menu items */
menu[label="Toolbars"],
menu[label="Layout"]
{display: none !important;}



  • Save the document as filename userChrome.css in the 'chrome' folder. Note the spelling all lower case except for the 'C'.

See image below as guide.

Start Thunderbird.

Under 'View', Toolbars and Layout should not be an option.

more options

Please note: It has been known that when code is entered for copying in this forum, the email sent to you may not have the complete code. The part that says !important is often missing. So please view the correct posted comment in the forum question to double check the code before saving the 'userChrome.css' file.

more options

Thanks, I'll try that.