Ubuntu – How to change thunderbird temporary file storage

thunderbird

When I open a message with an attachment and choose to "Open" the attachment, thunderbird downloads the attachment and saves it in /tmp and then opens it.

For security reasons I would like to be able to change the directory where the file is saved from /tmp to somewhere (I will use an encrypted volume). I cannot find a setting in thunderbird to do this, does anyone know if this is possible?

Best Answer

I have a workaround: Thunderbird uses the standard environment variable $TMP by default to determine where to store temporary files. It also uses this folder when you select to "Open" a mail attachment.

Therefore I have simply made a simple script to set this environment variable before launching thunderbird. I have modified my thunderbird shortcuts to use this script.

#!/bin/sh
export TMP=/media/truecrypt1/scratch
nohup thunderbird &

I would still be interested if anyone else has a more elegant solution; perhaps one that only affects the storage location of "Opened" attachments.

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