Add-ons
Pedantic Picture Packer 2.2.0
by Christian Krause
Propably the most advanced image compression addon for Thunderbird
- Safes 70 - 80 % space even without (optional) resizing
- State-of-the-art compression algorithms: JPEGli, pngquant, and oxipng
- Converts PNG to JPG if it safes space
About this Add-on
There are several add-ons for Thunderbird that focus on reducing the size of attached images. However, none of them fully met my specific needs—at all.
Many of these projects reduce the dimensions of attached images—when it comes to screenshots, this often leads to unreadable text. Some only process attachments and cannot handle inline images. They either cannot process PNG files or convert them to JPG—even when alpha channels are present, which JPG cannot represent. And when resizing, the downscaling algorithms can yield poor quality.
In short: they often represent a compromise designed mainly to prevent emails with many images from bouncing back.
I wanted something entirely different. Thanks to years of experience, I know how to truly make images small—but the effort is far too high. Finding the right target resolution and format, running an image through processing chains—first pngquant, then oxipng, alternatively jpegli, and finally reattaching it to the email just to save 50 KB—no one, not even me, wants to invest that amount of time for such minimal savings. And yet, by the end of the year, this adds up to hundreds of megabytes of unnecessarily large images per mailbox—and it affects both sender and recipient alike. They take up backup storage and are transmitted over the network, even though 80% savings would be possible without any visible loss in quality.
If only there were a Thunderbird add-on that handled all of this automatically and simply took two seconds longer after clicking the “Send” button. That has always been my dream. With AI, something like this can finally be realized in a more ‘affordable’ timeframe. And here it is:
Probably the best image-compression add-on for Thunderbird.
- State-of-the-art compression algorithms such as JPEGli, pngquant, and oxipng, integrated as WASM libraries.
- Saves 70–80% of storage space, even without optional resizing.
- Converts PNG files to JPG when doing so saves space.
- Resizes images to their HTML inline dimensions.
- Uses different resizing algorithms, optimized for PNGs (Mitchell) or typical JPG images (Lanczos).
- Create, import, and export compression profiles, then automatically apply them to specific image types (quoted images, inline images, or attachments)—or apply them manually to individual images.
- Compress, undo, redo, and adjust templates—improve your own workflow and deepen your understanding of image compression through direct comparisons.
- Remove images from quoted content entirely.
- Permanently exclude images from the workflow—for example, your own email signature.
- Download compressed images directly from the application. This lets you build other compression workflows around the add-on that are unrelated to email—for example, website optimization.
- Available in 9 languages.
Many of these projects reduce the dimensions of attached images—when it comes to screenshots, this often leads to unreadable text. Some only process attachments and cannot handle inline images. They either cannot process PNG files or convert them to JPG—even when alpha channels are present, which JPG cannot represent. And when resizing, the downscaling algorithms can yield poor quality.
In short: they often represent a compromise designed mainly to prevent emails with many images from bouncing back.
I wanted something entirely different. Thanks to years of experience, I know how to truly make images small—but the effort is far too high. Finding the right target resolution and format, running an image through processing chains—first pngquant, then oxipng, alternatively jpegli, and finally reattaching it to the email just to save 50 KB—no one, not even me, wants to invest that amount of time for such minimal savings. And yet, by the end of the year, this adds up to hundreds of megabytes of unnecessarily large images per mailbox—and it affects both sender and recipient alike. They take up backup storage and are transmitted over the network, even though 80% savings would be possible without any visible loss in quality.
If only there were a Thunderbird add-on that handled all of this automatically and simply took two seconds longer after clicking the “Send” button. That has always been my dream. With AI, something like this can finally be realized in a more ‘affordable’ timeframe. And here it is:
Probably the best image-compression add-on for Thunderbird.
- State-of-the-art compression algorithms such as JPEGli, pngquant, and oxipng, integrated as WASM libraries.
- Saves 70–80% of storage space, even without optional resizing.
- Converts PNG files to JPG when doing so saves space.
- Resizes images to their HTML inline dimensions.
- Uses different resizing algorithms, optimized for PNGs (Mitchell) or typical JPG images (Lanczos).
- Create, import, and export compression profiles, then automatically apply them to specific image types (quoted images, inline images, or attachments)—or apply them manually to individual images.
- Compress, undo, redo, and adjust templates—improve your own workflow and deepen your understanding of image compression through direct comparisons.
- Remove images from quoted content entirely.
- Permanently exclude images from the workflow—for example, your own email signature.
- Download compressed images directly from the application. This lets you build other compression workflows around the add-on that are unrelated to email—for example, website optimization.
- Available in 9 languages.
