• Official Monterail theme created in collaboration with Monterail. Version Information Version 1.1 Released May 20, 2018 154.8 KiB Works with Thunderbird 52.0 - 60.
• Thunderbird Monterail. I've made a quick test with the 'Full Dark' theme, and discovered that it works well with @gazugafan 's userContent.css: Main Window.

That rather swish Thunderbird redesign we recently spotlighted? It’s now a real, working theme.

I would like to change the folder pane background color in Thunderbird. Can you please show me how: (I know I need to do it into the userChrome.css file but just not sure how to do it.) 1. Change the default background folder pane color to my choice; 2. Also show me if it is it possibly to instead of a color have a picture in as the background.

Github user spymastermatt has crafted custom Thunderbird .css for the venerable e-mail client’s window chrome, having been inspired by the well-received mockup shared by Polish design company Monterail.

And the result is beautiful.

You can see how, despite having to work within the limitations of Thunderbird’s existing feature set and theme capabilities, just how close the recreation comes to the original mockup:

But it gets even better.

Thunderbird Monterail Dark

Three additional themes are included, all based on the Monterail design. Two of these, ‘light’ and ‘dark’, pick up the accent, background and highlight colours from whatever GTK theme you’re using.

The result is almost as seamless as the stock look. Images here are pictured with Ambiance: There’s also a striking “full dark” version for those of you who really dig dark themes.

Custom Thunderbird Themes

Now for the drawback-y bit: installing these theme(s) isn’t exactly one-click affair.

But the results, as you can gawp at above, more than make the effort worth it, I think.

See, these aren’t actually themes so much as custom userChrome.css files that change the look of Thunderbird as it starts up.

All 4 of of the theme files make use of the EncodeSans Narrow font (which is included in the details below) and uses a custom set of .svg icons to replace the default Thunderbird icons. These are drawn from the (incredible) Font Awesome project.

How to install the Thunderbird “monterail” themes

Download the thunderbird-monterail.zip folder from Github:

Once downloaded extract the .zip archive and rename the ‘thunderbird-monterail-master’ to ‘chrome’.

Open your Thunderbird user config folder in a new Nautilus window or tab. This is a hidden file (hit Ctrl + H to see hidden files and folders). It will be located ~/.thunderbird/[random letters and numbers].default/.

Move the ‘chrome’ directory to this folder:

Inside the “chrome” folder find the ‘userChrome.css‘ file and open it in a text editor.

On line 13 replace the @import 'themes/system.css'; with the name of the theme (‘dark.css’, ‘fulldark.css’, ‘light.css’, etc) that you wish to use.

Oh, and remember to hit Save!

Launch Thunderbird and the style should be applied instantly.

If things don’t look right do double check that you’ve edited the css file and remembered to save your changes.

Any further issues head over to the Github project page.

It just got easier to install the stylish Monterail themes in Thunderbird, the free and open source email client.

The Monterail themes for Thunderbird were created last year by the open source community based on concept designs from a Polish design company.

Thunderbird-monterail-master

And they proved an instant hit.

But as good as it the themes looked there was a “downside” to the early versions: installation.

To “install” the theme(s) you needed download a package from GitHub, extract it, and manually move files into hidden Thunderbird system folders.

Which was a bit of hassle.

But no more.

One of the Monterail theme’s original contributors, Emanuele C., has buffed up the code to make them compatible with the latest version of Thunderbird, Thunderbird 60 — and make it easier to install them in the process.

“For that I created two new version (one more is planned) that are compatible with Thunderbird 60.x (up to 52.x) and they are easier to install, because they are *true* themes and they can be installed with one click from the Thunderbird website,” he told me in an email.

And folks: I’m so very here for that.

Firefox 60 ships with a new, angular look inspired by the recent Firefox Photon redesign. It’s pleasant, but not to everyone’s tastes. Monterail provides an elegant alternative. When combined with with a few layout tweaks, they can totally transform the look and feel of the client.

Once “caveat” to note is that unlike the original (manual) themes, these do not pull the accent/selection colors from your GTK theme. That’s to say, the sidebar and selection colour are hardcoded values within the theme’s CSS.

Thunderbird Monterail Theme

Install Monterail Theme in Thunderbird 60

Thunderbird Monorail Cost

You’ll find the source code for new versions of the theme on Emanuele’s GitHub page (perfect place to file issues or contribute fixes).

To install the themes in Thunderbird60 — this version has yet to roll out to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS via Software Updater — you simply download the matching .xpi file via a browser and install them in Thunderbird using the Thunderbird > Addons > Install menu.

Once installed you can manage the themes via the Addons > Themes section of Thunderbird’s preferences page.

Thanks Emanuele