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I have been using Thunderbird for many years now and now I am interested in developing some of my own extensions. I looked over the documentation on their official website but found little support for getting started at this. I have some experience with python, perl, php and would like if you can recommend me some getting started materials, a "hello world" for this would be great.

Wladimir Palant
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Mike
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    There's also a demo addon to easily get you started: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Extensions/Thunderbird/Demo_Addon – Jonathan Protzenko Jan 11 '13 at 14:58
  • Jonathan, I think it's the only sample extension available which is actually compatible with a recent TB version. – GDR Jun 27 '13 at 21:09
  • I tried out the demo example but it wasn't working in Thunderbird, not sure how useful it is as an example. The chat plugin does work however, code available from http://www.xulforum.org/mozcamp2011/ change the .xpi extension to a .zip extension – ejectamenta Feb 08 '16 at 11:00

3 Answers3

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Update 2020

As of 2020, here is the current documentation:
https://developer.thunderbird.net/add-ons/about-add-ons

To build a simple Thunderbird extension in ten minutes look at this tutorial:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Extensions/Thunderbird/Building_a_Thunderbird_extension

However, the really good tutorial that focuses on creating Mozilla extensions (both Firefox and Thunderbird) is here:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en/XUL_School

Advanced topics about Thunderbird extensions:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Extensions/Thunderbird/HowTos

Some additional info:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Extensions/Thunderbird

Ra.
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    +1 The one thing I would add is https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/XPCOM_Interface_Reference – tripleee Aug 15 '13 at 11:10
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    Oh and http://mxr.mozilla.org/comm-release/source/mail/base/ for looking at Thunderbird internals. – tripleee Aug 16 '13 at 10:41
  • Boy the sheer number of broken links and old, conflicting versions of what documentation there is make for even getting started being a pretty daunting task. – John Smith Oct 03 '21 at 05:01
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The extension development forums at Mozilla are a great resource.

jjclarkson
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Update: Thunderbird 78

Since version 78 Thunderbird uses new MailExtensions format, legacy extensions
are no longer supported, most of links posted here before late 2020 are dead.

Current Mozilla guide to Thunderbird extensions is here:
https://developer.thunderbird.net/add-ons/mailextensions

chwast
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