How to Disable the Send Progress Dialog in Thunderbird

It takes just one change to suppress this window

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by Heinz Tschabitscher
An independent writer who has reviewed hundreds of email programs and services since 1997.
Updated April 18, 2019

Thunderbird displays a "Sending Message" window after you press Send on emails to show you how long it's taking to send the message. Depending on the size of the email and the speed of your internet connection and computer, you might see this send progress dialog box for longer than you care to.

Fortunately, you can disable this pop-up box and let Thunderbird send mail in the background, without reporting back to you how long it's taking. Just go into the advanced settings of the email client and change one option to false to make it happen.

These instructions and screenshots apply to Thunderbird version 60 in Windows.

How to Disable the Send Mail Progress Dialog

Turning off the "Sending Message" prompt can be done from the program's about:config screen.

  1. Go to Tools > Options.

    Thunderbird Tools menu

    If you don't see the menu bar at the top of Thunderbird, press the Alt key once to temporarily display it. Go to View > Toolbars > Menu Bar if you want it to be visible all the time.

  2. Select Advanced from the top right of the window.

    Thunderbird General Options window

  3. Choose Config Editor from the bottom of the General tab.

    Thunderbird advanced settings

    If you see a message that reads This might void your warranty!, select I accept the risk!.

  4. Type the following in the text box at the top:

    show_send_progress
    Thunderbird about:config page

  5. Double-click or double-tap mailnews.show_send_progress so that the "Value" to the right changes to false.

    mailnews.show_send_progress setting in Thunderbird

  6. Exit that screen and then select OK on the Options window to save and return to Thunderbird.

    Thunderbird Advanced options page

  7. From now on, Thunderbird will not show you how long it's taking to send a message. You can re-enable this feature at any time by repeating Step 5 to change the value back to true.