Improve Thunderbird Usability with KFileDialog over GTK Dialog

One of my gripes with GTK based applications, the big thing that tips me to saying that they are largely unusable, is the gtk file dialog. I’ll go ahead and warn you that, at this point, this is a completely nerdy and could be considered pedantic. So, if you are not concerned about things like the appearance and user experience of a file dialog box, this maybe of interest, otherwise, this is approaching a bit silly.

I previously published an article about using an external PDF application for attachments in Thunderbird which has been fantastically useful to me lately. Through that process, I was incredibly frustrated with the usability in the GTK file dialog. There might be some keyboard shortcuts but they are not obvious. The solution is to adjust Thunderbird to utilize the KFileDialog instead of the clunky GTK file dialog.

Bottom Line Up Front: This is a short, simple, quick to the point of almost not taking the time to write the article. The point of this is more to discuss the process and provide a little encouragement for the good folks of the Thunderbird project to make this a switch, much like they have for the native system title bar toggle. Really, the more Plasma feeling I can make Thunderbird, the more modern and usable it will feel.

The Core Fix

The config editor built into Thunderbird, like Firefox is an incredibly powerful tool, if you know what you are looking to achieve. The documentation is out there and it is just a matter of finding the right

Open Thunderbird > ≡ Menu > Settings > Scroll to the bottom > Config Editor…

There are two settings that need to be set for true:

widget.use-xdg-desktop-portal
use-xdg-desktop-portal

The other setting is use-xdg-desktop-portal.file-picker which has to be set to 1

If any of these, as written, are not in the list of preferences, just add them using the “+” icon to the right of the setting.

Once complete, restart Thunderbird, and the fantastic, feature-rich KFileDialog will replace the clunky, old-timey, GTK dialog.

The reality is, the file dialog is not used that often in Thunderbird, but when you do use it, that comfortable, highly functional KFileDialog is there to help you get to your destination file or location.

It should also be noted that the process of using portals is not as reliable on X11 as it is in Wayland. There may be glitches of some kind with X11 or the results may not be consistent.

Final Thoughts

This is another tweak that has made my transition to using Thunderbird so much smoother and greatly enhance my user experience. As an aside, I have explored the process of fixing all the GTK apps I have installed to use KFileDialog but I don’t seem to have that figured out.

For the time being, I will enjoy this improvement and if you have any suggestions for fixing all GTK apps, feel free to share that.

References

Thunderbird Okular Thumbnail
Daily Driving Thunderbird

Published 2025-10-222025-10-22