Birdtray for Linux

Birdtray is a Linux application that shows new mail notifications for Thunderbird in the system tray.

It works without needing any Thunderbird extensions.

Birdtray reads the unread email count directly from Thunderbird’s database.

This means it is not affected by changes to Thunderbird’s extension system.

The app shows how many unread emails you have and can optionally animate the Thunderbird icon when new mail arrives.

You can choose to snooze notifications for a set time if you don’t want alerts right away.

Birdtray also lets you hide or restore the Thunderbird window easily through its menu.

Birdtray allows you to check unread email separately for each account.

You can assign different font colors to the unread count, so you might see blue for personal email, red for work, or green if both have unread messages.

It can also start Thunderbird automatically when Birdtray opens and close Thunderbird when Birdtray quits.

This makes managing your email simpler without manually opening or closing Thunderbird.

One thing to note is that the feature to launch Thunderbird when Birdtray starts requires the Flathub version of Thunderbird.

Also, Birdtray depends on the default Thunderbird folder path (~/.var/app/org.mozilla.Thunderbird/.thunderbird), which may not work if your Thunderbird setup uses a different location.

Overall, Birdtray is useful for Linux users who want a safe and reliable tool to track new Thunderbird emails right from the system tray without extra plugins.