Latest Fedora 37
I can play wav files if I open them from Files but if I attempt to open a wav attachment in Thunderbird, System Handler opens and a blank dialog box comes up, wav does not play.
In Thunderbird Edit > Settings > Files & Attachments there is an option for how to handle WAV audio - if I select “Use other…” it opens a Files dialog box expecting me to point to an application…I guess.
How to i point to an application like MPV or other?
Is there another way to get wav files to open and play directly in Thunderbird without saving file first?
(all my voicemail is sent to a mail folder in wav attachments)
I did some looking and testing with my own files and what I found is that Thunderbird supports playing wav files for mail notification alerts but for attachments, it opens an external application. There doesn’t seem to be a way to configure that otherwise.
I did have a thought. You might be able to register an xdg action to the vlc CLI for the wav mime type so that thunderbird ends up playing it via VLC but VLC doesn’t open up a separate GUI window so it happens in the background. It’s been a minute since I’ve done this, so I’m a bit rusty on it…
I am fine with it opening in an external application but how do I point it to one if it does not show in the dialog box?
Setting > General > Files & Atachement
Select the extension you look for and browse for VLC to open with.
In my case .wav was not available. So i did send my self a .wav file and could already while open it select the right app. After closing and reopen Thunderbird you will find the .wav files in the settings too.
Yes, that is what I would like to do, but no other applications are listed to select. How do I browse for one, which directory would I go to?
When I select “Use other…” from drop down menu instead of “Use System Hander (default)” as shown in screenshot, it opens a Files browse dialog expecting me to show it where an application like VLC is.
With the command whereis you can see where the command is:
whereis vlc
vlc: /usr/bin/vlc /usr/lib64/vlc /usr/share/vlc /usr/share/man/man1/vlc.1.gz
Try to find this /usr/bin/vlc in the dialogue “use other”.
You can find the defaults based on MIME type at /usr/share/applications/mimeapps.list and you can override them for your user by editing ~/.local/share/applications/mimeapps.list. The default for .wav seems to be audio/wav=org.gnome.Totem.desktop;and audio/x-wav=org.gnome.Totem.desktop; , but you can specify a different .desktop launcher for it (relative to /usr/share/applications or ~/.local/share/applications).
Thanks for replies, whereis command is good to know.
Unfortunately however, once set to open with VLC, Thunderbird still fails to open and play wav file when pointed to /usr/bin/vlc
Scott:
Your suggestions about overriding and specifying are going over my head.
Any other ideas about what can be done to get wav file attachments to open and play directly from Thunderbird?
then you probably should look for the .desktop file from vlc.
Mine is in /usr/share/applications/vlc.desktop
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Mine is also at /usr/share/applications/vlc.desktop - gave that a shot but also did not open and play wav attachment.
You might have to restart Thunderbird before you can see the changes … at least for me it was this way when I did send my selves a .wav and let it open with vlc.