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When I write emails in Thunderbird (currently version 60 but this goes back since long) I write them in HTML. I see all the markup buttons and it looks OK. Then I send them and suddenly they are converted to plain text.

When I reply to an HTML email, the reply is often in HTML, so that goes as expected.

I use several email accounts, Gmail, Exchange and provider pop/imap accounts. All accounts are set to create HTML emails. I can't seem to find the cause of this.

How can I set Thunderbird to always use HTML when creating new mails?

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  • You need to set to checked for each account menu Tools > Account Settings > Composition & Addressing > Compose messages in HTML format.
    – harrymc
    Oct 5, 2019 at 17:38
  • @harrymc - that option is set for each account.
    – SPRBRN
    Oct 5, 2019 at 19:14
  • This might be caused by an add-on: Try to start Thunderbird in Safe Mode to start it without add-ons (or alternatively disable all of them). If HTML mode now works, disable/enable add-ons until you find the one.
    – harrymc
    Oct 5, 2019 at 20:08
  • That's a good tip. The only active addon was Enigmail, which I disabled as I'm no longer using it. I'll see if this solves the problem!
    – SPRBRN
    Oct 5, 2019 at 20:58
  • I had thought a setting had suddenly switched for me after an upgrade to Thunderbird 68.x, but looking at older emails it may have been happening all along, and Thunderbird 68.x simply changed the font of all-text messages to make it more evident that they were text. I'm really not sure. See also forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=3058606 for a related question. Feb 21, 2020 at 2:01

2 Answers 2

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Go to the "Composition" tab in the Preferences/Options panel, and to the "General" tab in that. Next to "Configure text format behavior", click the "Send Options" button, in the bottom right. The "Text Format" options are displayed.

Uncheck "Send messages as plain text if possible". Next, in the menu below "When sending messages in HTML format and one or more recipients are not listed as being able to receive HTML:", choose your option, for example "Send the message in both plain text and HTML" or "Send the message in HTML anyway".

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  • That is a good tip! I changed this option and it might be the solution. I'll test and see.
    – SPRBRN
    Oct 14, 2019 at 15:04
  • This seems to do the trick!
    – SPRBRN
    Oct 16, 2019 at 16:11
  • this is what I already had tried but in my case it still attaches the replied-to mail as plaintext at the end of the email.
    – Antonio
    Apr 6, 2020 at 9:32
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We had the same issue. Every contact in our adressbook had the "plain text preferred" flag.

Did you use Sogo Connector before (and changed to tbsync)? So it could be this issue: https://github.com/jobisoft/DAV-4-TbSync/issues/148

In our case we had to delete the

X-MOZILLA-HTML: FALSE

line in CardDav Data.

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  • Thanks for the tip - could be useful for someone else, but I don't use Sogo Connector or TbSync.
    – SPRBRN
    Oct 12, 2019 at 19:21

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