How to add startpage.com to Thunderbird search engine list?
I use startpage.com for all my internet searches. I found the article that uses the duckduckgo xml file to add that search engine to Thunderbird, but I am not knowledgeable enough to use that as a template to create a startpage.com xml file. Could you please help me so that I can use startpage.com with Thunderbird, and use it as my default search engine within Thunderbird?
I believe startpage.com is very much in line with the goals of mozilla to provide privacy on the internet, and that is why I have it as my default search engine in firefox. I do NOT want to use duckduckgo.
Please let me know if you need any further information from me for this question.
Thank you.
Chosen solution
You have to delete or rename the search.json.mozlz4 file in the profile folder (while TB is closed), and then restart TB to make it add the searchplugins xml files to the available search options (see picture). This works in TB 52, but not in TB 60 (see Bug 1427317).
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Do you mean these steps: Add Search Engine to Open Search?
This is the address for the Startpage XML plugin file:
https://www.startpage.com/en/opensearch.xml
You can right-click > Save Link As and give it a unique name like startpage.xml and see whether that works.
Hi jscher2000. I really appreciate your quick response, and it looked like what I was looking for. So I saved the xml plugin file per your directions as startpage.xml in the searchplugins directory. Then restarted Thunderbird, but it does not show up in the list still. If this is do-able, I think you are on the right track. Unfortunately, I don't know how to help you help me. :^|
I don't have Thunderbird on this computer so I can't test that file myself, unfortunately.
Can you double-check that the .xml extension wasn't doubled? That can happen if Windows is hiding file extensions. See: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/how-to-show-file-extensions-in-windows/
I just double checked, and the ".xml" is not repeated. I have Windows 10 show all extensions by default.
Chosen Solution
You have to delete or rename the search.json.mozlz4 file in the profile folder (while TB is closed), and then restart TB to make it add the searchplugins xml files to the available search options (see picture). This works in TB 52, but not in TB 60 (see Bug 1427317).
Modified by sfhowes
So here are the steps I took to achieve this solution - BIG THANKS to jscher2000 and sfhowes!
(I have Thunderbird v 52.8.0, apparently this does NOT work for v 60.)
1. Close Thunderbird.
2. Locate your Thunderbird profile. (My profile was located at C:\Users\[MyUserName]\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\fea18su2.default)
3. Create a directory called searchplugins in the above directory if it does not already exist. (I had to create this directory, and it is in the fea18su2.default folder.)
4. Right click this link and Save Link As startpage.xml into the searchplugins directory from step 3. https://www.startpage.com/en/opensearch.xml
5. Delete or rename the search.json.mozlz4 file. (I renamed it to search.json.mozlz4.OLD.)
6. Restart Thunderbird. It should add the searchplugins xml files to the available search options. And it will re-create the search.json.mozlz4 file.
Worked for me!
Modified by mmkjc23