Thunderbird – Changing the default font for real

I use Mozilla’s Thunderbird email client application for my business email needs. I do this because it handles HTML much better than Outlook.

Thunderbird’s default font is Times New Roman, a serif font I dislike. I want my default font to be a sans-serif font like Arial. I have wrestled with trying to change all instances of default fonts in Thunderbird for years, trying to do away with Times New Roman, unless I really want to use it. I never fully succeeded, until now. There were always annoying instances where Thunderbird displays or changes the font to Times New Roman.

Today the light bulb in my head went off that it was simple to solve this.  To fix the problem all I need do is change the Thunderbird default serif font from Times New Roman to a sans-serif font like Arial. I can still use serif fonts by selecting them in the email composition window.

To make this change:

1. Select Thunderbird’s Tools > Options menu.
2. Select the Display tab.
3. Click the Fonts… button in the Fonts & Encodings panel.
4. Change the Serif font to something other than Times New Roman. I selected Arial.
5. Click the OK button twice.