Show Remote Content by Default in Thunderbird

I use Mozilla Thunderbird as my default email client in Windows and Linux because it is both feature rich and security conscious. It uses many measures to protect you from spam and malicious email messages. For example, it disables displaying of the remote content by default so that email messages cannot open an external link. This prevents you from being the victim of drive-by-download malware infections (as soon as you open the message, malware is downloaded and you get infected). All the email messages that I receive in Mozilla Thunderbird display the remote content warning after disabling such content.

Remote content in Mozilla Thunderbird

But if you are using a good standard antivirus product then you do not have be paranoid about infected email messages as these malicious email messages will be detected by your antivirus program. Many antivirus programs like avast! offer email message scanning that integrates into Mozilla Thunderbird and scans each and every email message for the presence of malware. If your antivirus is already protecting you then you can enable showing of the remote content in Thunderbird by default. Here is how:

  1. Open Mozilla Thunderbird email client. Click on the menu icon (it looks like three horizontal lines) and then select Options → Options from the menu.Remote content in Mozilla Thunderbird
  2. In the Options window that opens up, switch to the Privacy tab. Then place a checkmark in the checkbox labeled Allow remote content in messages under the Mail Content box.Remote content in Mozilla Thunderbird
  3. Click OK to save the settings and you are done. Now you will see all the remote content in all of your email messages.

Although enabling remote content in email messages makes the messages look as they were intended to look, yet this could be risky if you do not have a good antivirus installed. Even if you have an antivirus installed, it is not going to protect you from messages that have links to call back home to record your IP address and that you have viewed the email message.

Conclusion: You can easily display the remote content in email messages in Mozilla Thunderbird to read the emails properly in the format those messages were originally composed. But you should equip your Windows or Mac PC with a good antivirus product before you enable the remote content in Thunderbird.