Binding Firefox & Thunderbird Together under Linux

Firefox and Thunderbird are obviously meant to be used together, but an annoying detail is that under Linux they are still not setup that way. Firefox is not configured to launch Thunderbird to handle email links, nor is Tunderbird configured to delegate web links to Firefox. I review below how to setup both software.

Configuring Thunderbird

Close Thunderbird and in ~/.thunderbird/xyz/user.js insert:

user_pref("network.protocol-handler.app.http","/usr/local/firefox/firefox");
user_pref("network.protocol-handler.app.https","/usr/local/firefox/firefox");

changing the values in italics by the actual values in your system. Changes will be effective next time your start Firefox.

Configuring Firefox

In Firefox, enter about:config in the address bar, and search for the following key (or enter it if it's not there):

network.protocol-handler.app.mailto

Set the value to Thunderbird binary file path, e.g. /usr/local/thunderbird/thunderbird

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