Now that is truly strange that a mail client would want you to have a mail account. I take it you do not do invites using the calendar. That only works if you have a mail account.

robcrutchfield said Thanks, but my question wasn't why it prompts for an email account, which of course I don't find strange at all. I asked whether there's a way to stop it from doing that. (You guessed right, I don't do invites using the calendar.)

As you know Thunderbird is an email client designed to act as an email client, so if there is no mail accounts created, it will assume that as you have run Thunderbird, then you need to create a mail account. Hence the wizard popup.

The fact you are using it to run an addon created by a different author is irrelevant. You are choosing to use Thunderbird as a means to suit a different purpose.

This means that you would need to use a workaround (unless I can find anything different). I cannot imagine there is a setting in Thunderbird to not act as an email client, but I'm willing to accept it is not impossible and I do not the answer.

Workaround: Create a bogus POP mail account - use your current email address with bad/wrong password. This will say the configuration is not correct due to username or password incorrect.

Select 'Skip this and use my exisitng email' Enter name, email address and BAD password. It will try to configure. Make sure POP has been selected - not IMAP. Click on 'Done' button and it will create the mail account even if it cannot work with bad password. Then go into Account Settings and make a few changes.

Right click on mail account in left Folder Pane and select 'Settings'. Click on 'Server Settings' for the pop mail account. Uncheck all of the following:

• check for new messages at start up
• Check for new messages every xx minutes
• Automatically download new messages

click on OK

then close Thunderbird.

Restart Thunderbird. It should open normally and not try to do any connectiing to any mail account. It should not activate the wizard.

This is the best method I can think of at this moment, but it will allow you to use Lightning and not be annoyed by future requests to create a mail account.

You might have some success with this add-on:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/lightbird/

It appears that if you install it on SeaMonkey, you can have the calendar open by itself when SM is launched, bypassing the email component of SM.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/lightbird/reviews/619950/

Thanks, Toad-Hall and sfhowes!

I will try the Lightbird add-on, in SeaMonkey (I see it's listed as a Thunderbird add-on, but I take it you're saying it won't solve my problem if used in Thunderbird).

To any Thunderbird developers-- you'd gain the gratitude and admiration of people like me if you'd add a "skip email account prompt" flag. It's a kludge, but a very simple one, and it would make a very good calendar program more usable.

Lightning used to be available as a standalone calendar, called Sunbird. However its development has ceased, presumably because there wasn't sufficient interest in it to justify the effort of maintaining it.

So, don't hold your breath waiting for a stand-alone Lightning; it's been done, and killed off already.

I don't think Lightbird frees you from the email client, nor Lightning itself; my understanding, possibly mistaken, is that it allows the calendar to operate in a separate window, but still requires the underlying mail client program to be running.