How do I make Thunderbird's reply format look like Outlook's?

Solution 1:

This is fairly easy to do with Thunderbird 14.0, using the SmartTemplate and ReFwdFormatter extensions.

1. Install SmartTemplate and ReFwdFormatter

• Start Thunderbird, go to Tools...Add-ons

• Search for smarttemplate and install:

  

• Search for refwd and install:

  

• Restart Thunderbird to activate the extensions.

2. Configure ReFwdFormatter to remove the quote vertical bar

• Go to Tools...Add-ons and select the Extensions option in the left sidebar.

• Click on the Preferences button for ReFwdFormatter:

  

• Make sure all the choices you need are selected, and close.

3. Configure SmartTemplate to reply like Outlook

• Go to Tools...Add-ons and select the Extensions option in the left sidebar.
• Click on the Preferences button for SmartTemplate

• In the "SmartTemplate Settings" window, click on the Reply tab:

  

• Set up the checkboxes as above, and paste this basic Outlook reply template in the text box:

  <br>
  <hr>
  <b>From:</b> %from%
  <b>Sent:</b> %X:=sent% %A%, %B% %d%, %Y% %l%:%M%%p(3)%
  [[<b>To:</b> %to%]][[<br><b>Cc:</b> %cc%]]
  <b>Subject:</b> %subject%
  <br>
  

• To see what the fields mean and a list of all available fields, click on the Help button to expand the window with this useful section (or see list on website):

  

• You should also paste the same template in the Forward tab, with the same settings.

4. Demo:

5. Further customization

• This requires minimal knowledge of HTML. If you need specific help, please post in the comments below.

Specific customizations for karthick87

• Makes horizontal line blue
• Makes header font size smaller
• Gray highlight/background for headers
• Date/time in Outlook format
• Only email names displayed in headers, with clickable mailto: links and a tooltip displaying the email address on mouse hover

<br>
<hr style="color:#62B3FF">
<div style="background-color: #DDDDDD; font-size:10pt"><b>From:</b> <a title="%from(mail)%" href="mailto:%from(mail)%">%from(name)%</a>
<b>Sent:</b> %X:=sent% %A%, %B% %d%, %Y% %l%:%M%%p(3)%
[[<b>To:</b> <a title="%to(mail)%" href="mailto:%to(mail)%">%to(name)%</a>]][[<br><b>Cc:</b> <a title="%cc(mail)%" href="mailto:%cc(mail)%">%cc(name)%</a>]]
<b>Subject:</b> %subject%</div>
<br>

Solution 2:

Please Note: Kindly let me know about improvement, I'm glad to edit it. Instead of deleting it!

There is an alternative to SmartTemplate4 add-on for Message Attribution aka Outlook like reply in Thunderbird. ReplyWithHeader brings capabilities of outlook like message attribution, header typography, line spaces for Thunderbird. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/replywithheader/.

RWH Preferences screenshot:

Disclaimer: Author of ReplyWithHeader add-on.

Solution 3:

You can give ThunderBird Conversations Extension a try.

Here is a screenshot.