Combine Stop and Reload buttons [ Install]—Either Firefox is loading a page (and should show a Stop button), or it's fully rendered a page (and should show a Reload button). This user script combines the Stop and Reload buttons into one that changes functionality depending on the context. Update: Replaced the Smartly show Stop and Reload with this script, which is better implemented. Thanks, _Jonny!

Yellow the location bar for https:// sites [ Install]—Firefox 2's noticeable visual cue that you are browsing a site over an encrypted connection—a totally yellow address bar—got pulled from Firefox 3. Re-yellow the location bar on https:// web sites with this user style.

userstyles-bookmarkkeyword.png
Add a keyword when you bookmark a page [ Install]—If you use Firefox's location bar as a command line with keyword bookmarks, this tweak's a must-have for you. This user style displays the keyword field in the Add a Bookmark and Edit Bookmark dialog so you don't have to navigate all the way into the Bookmark organizer to set up your keywords.

Enable multiple tab rows [ Install]—While this user style makes your tabs' borders look a little wonky, it's super-handy if you often keep more than 15 or 20 tabs open at once. With this user style installed and several tabs open, instead of scrolling tabs off to the side, this user style stacks them in two rows.

userstyles-macfavicons.png
Mac bookmark toolbar favicons [ Install]—Add web site icons to your bookmarks toolbar on the Mac with this user style.

Hide Unneeded Buttons, Menus, and Menu Items

If consolidating Firefox's chrome to maximize browsing area is your thing and you're a master of Firefox's mouse and keyboard shortcuts, there's a whole lot of unnecessary bells and whistles that the right user styles can cut out.

userstylesmagglass.png
Hide the search box magnifying glass and location bar Go button [ Install]—You already know you can hit Enter to go to a web site address or run a search from the upper right hand box, so give your text more room to breathe by removing the location bar Go button and search box magnifying glass.

Remove the "throbber" [ Install]—You'll see the status of your page loading on the turning pinwheel located on each individual tab, so you don't need the one on the upper right hand corner of the browser. This user style removes it to save space.

Hide the Edit and Help menus [ Install]—If you already know all the keyboard combinations for features in the Edit menu—like Ctrl+C to copy, Ctrl+V to paste, etc—you can remove that menu, as well as the Help menu from the pulldown menu bar. This comes in handy if you want to relocate your location bar to the pulldown menu area to save vertical space, as shown.
firefoxchromeconsolidated1.png

See a video demonstration of how to get your location bar looking like that.

userstyleshideopenall.jpg
Hide the "Open all in tabs" item in bookmark folders [ Install]—If you keep bookmarks in folders on your toolbar, each one will have a "Open all in tabs" option on the list. Since you can always mousewheel click the folder to open all links in tabs, this user style removes this item.

Auto-Hide the Bookmarks Toolbar [ Install]—Get more vertical space but still have access to your bookmarks toolbar with this user style, which only shows your bookmark toolbar when you hover over it—the rest of the time it's hidden. While this user style can get a bit annoying to folks who move their mouse up to the location bar, if you Ctrl+L often, it's a nice space-saver.

Bonus about:config tweaks

• Turn on spellcheck in text fields (only on in textareas by default)
• Enable color profile support
• Tweak the "AwesomeBar"'s algorithm weights
• Disable blinking text

What are your favorite user styles for Firefox? Post 'em (preferably with links to userstyles.org) in the comments.

Gina Trapani, the editor of Lifehacker, likes styling Firefox for function instead of looks. Her weekly feature, Geek to Live, appears every Monday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Geek to Live feed to get new installments in your newsreader.

tbird-setcopiesandfolders.png

tbird%5BImap%5Dfolders.png
Even after you do this, you'll notice a few strange labels in your Gmail account: [Imap]/Sent, [Imap]/Drafts and [Imap]/Trash. These are Thunderbird's default Sent, Drafts, and Trash folders. Once you make the change to your account settings, you can delete those labels in Gmail and they won't get regenerated. (Note: except for [Imap]/Trash, which I can't rid myself of entirely, since T-bird seems married to it. Bueller? Update: see the next section for the solution to the [Imap]/Trash label.)

Set Thunderbird to use Gmail's Trash folder (UPDATE)

Reader Vanl explains how to set T-bird's trash folder correctly, which involves some Thunderbird configuration editing. Here's how:

1. From the Tools menu, choose Options.
2. Go to the "Advanced" Option menu and the "General" tab. Hit the "Config Editor" button next to the "Advanced Configuration" label.
3. Now you need to look around in there a bit to find which server you need to modify. Using the filter entry box at the top, type in mail.server.server and you will see a list of keys and values. One of those keys will be mail.server.serverX.name, where X is a number and the value is the name of your Gmail IMAP account. Remember X.
4. Right-click somewhere in the box and select New->String.
5. A dialog box will pop up asking for the name of your new key. Put in mail.server.serverX.trash_folder_name, where X is the number you remember from above. (For example, mine is mail.server.server2.trash_folder_name.)
6. A new box will come up asking for the value of your new key. Put in [Gmail]/Trash. tbirdconfig.png
7. Go to Gmail's web interface and delete the label [Imap]/Trash.
8. Restart Thunderbird.

UPDATE 2, Nov 8th: A Gmail IMAP engineer writes in with more information about the implications of the Trash tweak:

Using the [Gmail]/Trash as your Trash folder can lead to some unexpected issues, and the Gmail team doesn't recommend it.

Our recommended client settings page doesn't go far enough to explain why this can be an issue. The problem is that gmail only keeps a single copy of a message with multiple labels. If you apply the Trash label by placing the message in the [Gmail]/Trash folder, you are telling GMail to remove the message from all labels, and GMail will also delete the message in 30 days.

If for some reason you actually expect the message to be in multiple folders, and you delete it from one thinking that only removes it from that folder, if you set your Trash to [Gmail]/Trash, you will mistakenly remove the message from both folders.

So, suppose you have a filter set up to keep a copy of every message in another label/folder, and you normally just go through your inbox in Thunderbird deleting every message, knowing you have a copy saved in another folder, you will be actually deleting both copies. Or maybe you think you are relying on the automatic "second copy" that Gmail has in the "[Gmail]/All Mail" folder: again, moving a message to the Trash will remove it from there as well.

Or, perhaps you mistakenly "copied" a message to another folder, instead of "moving" it, so you then "delete" the copy that was left behind: this will actually delete the message from both places.

In short: If you're using Gmail's Trash folder, expect that all copies of any message you put there will be deleted, not just the one you move there.

How Thunderbird actions map to Gmail

Before we move into Thunderbird tweaks and add-ons, check out this chart of what actions in your client will do in web-based Gmail, courtesy of Google.

actionsync.png

Note that Gmail labels do NOT map to Thunderbird's tags. Each label is represented by an old school folder in Thunderbird. If a message has more than one label, it will appear in multiple folders, which is very cool. To label a message in Thunderbird, move it to the appropriate folder. To create a new label in Gmail, create a new folder in Thunderbird, and so forth.

Subfolders and Slash Labels

If you move a message into a subfolder of a folder in Thunderbird, over in web-based Gmail you'll see a label named parent folder/child folder. Conversely, any labels with forward slashes in them will create subfolders in T-bird. You Folders4Gmail users in Better Gmail may absolutely love this. (Note: the Folders4Gmail script has been updated to support the IMAP forward slash as well as a backslash; Better Gmail to follow very soon. Thanks, Sean!)

Combine Gmail's Spam-killer with Thunderbird's Adaptive Junk Filter

Along the same lines as setting the Sent and Drafts folders to align above, if you enable Thunderbird's Junk filter, make sure it moves junk mail to Gmail's Spam folder so that Gmail marks it as spam as well. That way the bird's adaptive filter can teach Gmail as it learns. Here's that setting:

tbirdspamgmail.png

Get Gmail Goodness in Thunderbird

Thunderbird has a few features built-in or easily added that are similar or match Gmail web-based functionality in a rich desktop app. Like:

• thunderbirdthreads.png Threaded conversation view. Ok, so it's not quite as nice as Gmail's web-based implementation, but you can view messages by thread. Click on the tiny "display message threads" button to see replies in a hierarchical order in Thunderbird. Image by Digg user D14BL0. Here are the results:

  tbird-threads.png

  Collapse the thread by hitting the - sign, and new replies to a message won't create a whole new line in the list.

• Gmail search operators and keyboard shortcuts. The GMailUI Thunderbird extension adds Gmail keyboard shortcuts (like y to archive, j/k to move up and down the message list), and Gmail advanced search operators to Thunderbird's search box (like subject:hi from:gidget.)

  Set the y key to move messages to your [Gmail]/All Mail folder, which will archive messages in Gmail.

  tbirdgmailui.png

  There are other Thunderbird keyboard shortcut extensions (I'm also partial to TB Quick Move) but nothing as elegant as Gmail Macros on the web side for you Greasemonkey or Better Gmail users. Let us know if you've got a better alternative.

Enjoy Thunderbird-Specific Features

Getting your Gmail in Thunderbird via IMAP means you get T-bird-specific happiness too, like:

• Sorting messages by size. Anyone who's had a nearly-full Gmail account knows the tedious, manual process that is freeing up space. In Thunderbird, you can do the one thing Google wouldn't let you do in Gmail: Sort your messages by size, so you can target the space hogs. To do so, hit the small button on the right-most side of the column header list, and select Size to show message sizes. Then click the Size header to sort ascending or descending, and delete the hefty messages directly from Thunderbird. Thanks, Vsack!
• Drag and drop message import. Want to bring old email from other accounts into Gmail? While connected via IMAP, drag other messages stored in Thunderbird to your Gmail folders, for instant import with all the old message headers intact. Much better than the other convoluted methods we've recommended in the past. Thanks, Irian!
• Reply before or after the quote. You need a Firefox extension like Better Gmail to do this in web-based Gmail, but in Thunderbird you can easily set whether you want your replies to appear above or below quoted text, as shown in your account preferences: tbirdreplyquote.png

  You can also automatically select the entire quote for easy chopping up in your reply, and set whether your signature appears above or below your quote.
  

• Better multiple identity and signature management. Set up multiple "identities" in Thunderbird with email address-specific signatures, which you can't do in web-based Gmail. Hit the "Manage Identities" button in your Account Preferences dialog. The various identities you choose will be available as a dropdown in the From: field in new messages, just like in web-based Gmail. You can also create and automatically attach a vCard to your outgoing messages on a per-identity basis with T-bird, and choose to compose your messages as HTML or plain text per identity, too. (Click to enlarge screenshots of the identity manager.)

  http://lifehacker.com/assets/resources/2007/10/tbirdidmgt-thumb.png

• Better filters. Gmail's filtering mechanism and interface is OK, but Thunderbird's is better. Case in point: you can specify in what order filters should be applied to incoming messages. Check out our essential email filters for ideas.
  
• Manage form letters with the QuickText extension. Easily send canned responses that contain message-specific variables like sender name with the excellent QuickText Thunderbird extension. Here's how to knock down repetitive email with Thunderbird and QuickText.

I've only had limited time with the amazing combination of IMAP, Gmail, and Thunderbird, so I'm sure I missed some things here. How are you using T-bird/Gmail/IMAP? Let us know in the comments.

And for more ways to enhance Thunderbird, check out our previously posted eight killer Thunderbird extensions.

Update: Wired News reports that Gmail's IMAP support isn't full to spec; Google says Gmail's IMAP implementation is "fairly complete" and lists what IMAP features aren't supported.

Gina Trapani, the editor of Lifehacker, is thrilled to have the Holy Email Trinity of Thunderbird, IMAP and Gmail together at last. Her weekly feature, Geek to Live, appears every Friday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Geek to Live feed to get new installments in your newsreader.

Thoughts, questions and tips about modding the Xbox and XBMC? Hit us up in the comments.

Gina Trapani, the editor of Lifehacker, just fell in love with her Xbox all over again. Her weekly feature, Geek to Live, appears every Friday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Geek to Live feed to get new installments in your newsreader.

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