Programster's Blog

Tutorials focusing on Linux, programming, and open-source

Thunderbird - Disable Hardware Acceleration

Recently, I've noticed that Thunderbird is really slow, and will quite often get stuck on showing large black areas whenever I expand the window, or try to open a message in a new window. Luckily, disabling hardware acceleration resolved the issue for me, and it seems a lot more responsive now.

For reference, I am using the onboard graphics of an Intel i5-4670K on Linux which is probably something to do with the issue. I reckon if you one is running on Windows, or with a dedicated GPU, you are probably not going to be experiencing these issues.

Steps

Click Edit > Preferences

Then search for "use hardware" until you see the following, and then uncheck the checkbox.

Last updated: 20th December 2021
First published: 20th December 2021

This blog is created by Stuart Page

I'm a freelance web developer and technology consultant based in Surrey, UK, with over 10 years experience in web development, DevOps, Linux Administration, and IT solutions.

Need support with your infrastructure or web services?

Get in touch