Hello, how can I get Gnome to recognize Thunderbird(Flatpak) as the default app for mail and calendars?
Did you install Thunderbird via Flatpak?
Ah yes sorry I forgot to mention, yes by Flatpak
What is interesting is that mailto goes to Thunderbird:
xdg-mime query default x-scheme-handler/mailto
org.mozilla.Thunderbird.desktop
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I also am on Silverblue (41), but using Geary for emails, and the app is recognized in Settings->Apps->Default Apps->Mail.
In oder to try replicating your issue, I had installed Thunderbird as Flatpak (tested both from fedora as well as flathub remotes), and afterwards it became available as an option for setting it as the default mail app.
Chances are low, but had the Settings app been open with focus on the Default Apps page at the time you were installing Thunderbird? The page doesn’t refresh automatically.
What does flatpak info org.mozilla.Thunderbird -roM show?
No, I completely reinstalled the system yesterday and today I came up with the idea that I still have to adjust it. There were even several reboots in between.
flatpak info org.mozilla.Thunderbird -roM
app/org.mozilla.Thunderbird/x86_64/stable flathub
[Context]
shared=network;ipc;
sockets=x11;wayland;pulseaudio;pcsc;cups;
devices=all;
features=devel;
filesystems=xdg-download;xdg-run/gnupg:ro;/run/.heim_org.h5l.kcm-socket;~/.gnupg;xdg-run/speech-dispatcher:ro;
persistent=.thunderbird;
[Session Bus Policy]
org.gtk.vfs.*=talk
org.mozilla.thunderbird.*=own
org.a11y.Bus=talk
org.mozilla.thunderbird_beta.*=own
[System Bus Policy]
org.freedesktop.NetworkManager=talk
[Environment]
TMPDIR=~/.var/app/org.mozilla.Thunderbird/cache/tmp
DICPATH=/usr/share/hunspell
Did you see this Mozilla help article?
It is a bit fragmented and it is for Xfce but might help?
no, not yet, even if I don’t quite understand what the solution was.
mailto links show me the following:
Unfortunately, reinstalling did not help either.
Did you by any chance tweak the *.desktop file?
What is the output of the following:
cat /var/lib/flatpak/exports/share/applications/org.mozilla.Thunderbird.desktop | grep Exec
printenv XDG_DATA_DIRS
gsettings get org.gnome.shell favorite-apps
No, I’m currently trying to change the system as little as possible.
cat /var/lib/flatpak/exports/share/applications/org.mozilla.Thunderbird.desktop | grep Exec
Exec=/usr/bin/flatpak run --branch=stable --arch=x86_64 --command=thunderbird --file-forwarding org.mozilla.Thunderbird @@u %u @@
Exec=/usr/bin/flatpak run --branch=stable --arch=x86_64 --command=thunderbird org.mozilla.Thunderbird -compose
Exec=/usr/bin/flatpak run --branch=stable --arch=x86_64 --command=thunderbird org.mozilla.Thunderbird -addressbook
printenv XDG_DATA_DIRS
/var/home/tealk/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share:/var/lib/flatpak/exports/share:/usr/local/share/:/usr/share/
gsettings get org.gnome.shell favorite-apps
['org.gnome.Nautilus.desktop', 'org.gnome.Console.desktop', 'dev.zed.Zed.desktop']
Nothing out of the ordinary, though my request for the last output was not relevant, my mistake.
One piece of information missing is the output of rpm-ostree status, though I don’t think it will tell much. Please post it though.
Also, what is the output of cat ~/.config/mimeapps.list?
rpm-ostree status
State: idle
Deployments:
â—Ź fedora:fedora/41/x86_64/silverblue
Version: 41.20250320.0 (2025-03-20T00:49:28Z)
BaseCommit: a53ce8ef8ddf1177c29d1913d5de34270446a07cf28e99dacf01309b85ec07e7
GPGSignature: Valid signature by 466CF2D8B60BC3057AA9453ED0622462E99D6AD1
RemovedBasePackages: firefox firefox-langpacks 136.0.1-1.fc41
LayeredPackages: gnome-console hstr nc nextcloud-client openssl yq
fedora:fedora/41/x86_64/silverblue
Version: 41.20250320.0 (2025-03-20T00:49:28Z)
BaseCommit: a53ce8ef8ddf1177c29d1913d5de34270446a07cf28e99dacf01309b85ec07e7
GPGSignature: Valid signature by 466CF2D8B60BC3057AA9453ED0622462E99D6AD1
RemovedBasePackages: firefox firefox-langpacks 136.0.1-1.fc41
LayeredPackages: gnome-console hstr nc nextcloud-client openssl yq
cat ~/.config/mimeapps.list
[Default Applications]
x-scheme-handler/https=re.sonny.Junction.desktop
x-scheme-handler/http=re.sonny.Junction.desktop
[Added Associations]
x-scheme-handler/https=re.sonny.Junction.desktop;
x-scheme-handler/http=re.sonny.Junction.desktop;
x-scheme-handler/sms=org.gnome.Shell.Extensions.GSConnect.desktop;
x-scheme-handler/tel=org.gnome.Shell.Extensions.GSConnect.desktop;
I think it is saying on the page linked off the one I posted
" Set Thunderbird as the operating system default:
Using Gnome as an example, go to Applications > Desktop Preferences > Advanced > Preferred Applications. Select Custom Mail Reader and enter thunderbird "mailto:%s" (If Thunderbird is not in the system’s PATH statement, specify the full path.)"
Then on the page I linked to it says set /home/yourusernamehere/.local/share/flatpak/exports/bin/org.mozilla.Thunderbird "mailto:%s"
Instead of thunderbird "mailto:%s"
At this point I only have a couple of suggestions left:
-
Add
firefoxandfirefox-langpacksback to the base image, so that there are no RemovedBasePackages left. I expect Firefox to be set up as default registered application, and removing it might have caused this. If adding it back makes the issue go away, then it might be a bug worth reporting. -
If the previous step didn’t help, reset the
dconfdatabase after having it backed up:
dconf dump / >~/Documents/dconf.backup
dconf reset -f /
You’ll have to repeat any setups you have performed in the Settings app, as well as in GNOME Tweaks (if any), but this might have reset some setting that would allow for Thunderbird to be recognized in Settings.
- If the previous step didn’t help, you could manually tweak the
~/.config/mimeapps.listfile, and add the following manually, in the corresponding sections (without removing the existing entries):
[Default Applications]
x-scheme-handler/mailto=org.mozilla.Thunderbird.desktop
text/calendar=org.mozilla.Thunderbird.desktop
[Added Associations]
x-scheme-handler/mailto=org.mozilla.Thunderbird.desktop;
text/calendar=org.mozilla.Thunderbird.desktop;
For this, re.sonny.Junction.desktop is registered, which is a tool that gives me an option each time which browser I want to use. Other than removing ff I did not get the browser out of the list. I’ll give it a try anyway.
So the first 2 options didn’t work, only step 3 solved it.
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Glad to hear it got finally solved.
For me yes, but isn’t that still a bug somehow?
It might be, but it seems particular to your setup.
In order to file a bug, you’d need to try to reproduce the steps that would lead to this issue. My take is that if you’d perform a fresh Silverblue install, and first thing you would do is to install Thunderbird, then setting it as default mail client would work. If this supposition is true, then something you’ve performed on your installation is triggering it.
And that something might have nothing to do with Thunderbird in particular (could have been another email client), but rather with the fact that upon installation of the email client, it doesn’t get added to the [Added Associations] section in ~/.config/mimeapps.list. This is just a guess though.
Exactly, I installed Fedora from a USB stick which I created with the Fedora Creator and I did the installation with the default values. Then I installed Thunderbird and all the other apps I needed. It wasn’t until later that I noticed this with Firefox and found the command for it here in the forum.
Since this sounds pretty much like standard behavior, like any user would do, it feels like a bug.