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That rather swish Thunderbird redesign we recently spotlighted? It’s now a real, working theme.
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.
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.
Thunderbird Monterail Windows
Any further issues head over to the Github project page.
I was impressed with the Monterail’s speed of work and ability to work under time constraints. They managed to deliver a business-critical feature for us keeping the high quality, paid attention to detail and showed great responsiveness during the process. Monterail proved to be a partner to rely on under all circumstances.
Magdalena Mazur-Milewska
Thunderbird Monterail Dark
Product Owner at Pizza Hut
We made the strategic decision to continue pushing software development during these times so we’re in a good competitive position as soon as economy is getting back to normal again.
Lukas Gutwinski
Managing Director, Gutwinski Management
It took Monterail 6 weeks to deliver us a beautifully designed app for iOS and Android. I didn't even know it is possible! Each stage of the development was conducted professionally and in a timely manner: from the concept, through the implementation to final steps.
John Duisberg
Co-founder of Cooleaf, Inc.
What impressed me most with Monterail is their commitment and willing to go the extra mile. It's really great to feel they care as much as you do about your project and will work hard to find the right solution. Monterail is truly an extension of our development team.
Michel Regueiro
CEO, Teambook