How to get rid of double dash before the signature?

Question

I am using thunderbird as my email client and i use a signature to all my outgoing mails. How ever i can see the -- (double dash) which prepends to my signature. Is it possible to avoid the double dash -- ?

You shouldn't avoid it, as it's an Internet standard designed to enable email programs to recognise signatures and deal with them appropriately. — Mike Scott, May 02 '11 at 07:21
Who cares that it's an internet standard. It's annoying. I'm getting rid of it. Thanks, +1 for the q n a — uɥƃnɐʌuop, Jan 02 '13 at 10:25
It is not an Internet Standard though. The relevant text in RFC 3676 in particular makes no such requirement. What it does is to note a "long-standing convention" and enable the continued use of that convention by defining certain rules for a document of MIME type "text/plain;Format=Flowed". In fact Thunderbird does not even produce documents of that type. — ajm475du, Sep 12 '14 at 15:51
@MikeScott If it's an internet standard, then it is a stupid one. At least the way implemented. When sending a new email (as opposed to replying) I can't for the life of me see why there should be a separator. It just looks messy. — abalter, Sep 15 '17 at 22:10
It's hard to believe that this is still a thing but sure enough, latest version of Thunderbird adds two dashes it's annoying every email deleting that. The solution below works like a charm, hope we don't break the internet doing it... jk — Aaron Belchamber, Feb 04 '21 at 17:37

score 63 · Accepted Answer · edited Aug 01 '17 at 03:01

63

Open the Config Editor: Either Tools -> Options or Edit -> Preferences

Go to Advanced -> General -> Config Editor

Then search for mail.identity.default.suppress_signature_separator and set it to TRUE by double-clicking it.

Now all new emails are created without the -- before the signature.

edited Aug 01 '17 at 03:01

Jeff Puckett

1,741

answered Sep 14 '11 at 09:32

Edvin

646

I dont find that entry in thunderbird config editor. – karthick87 Sep 14 '11 at 11:50
FYI, this worked for me perfectly on the latest version (12.0.1) – Jaxidian May 21 '12 at 13:44
Works on Thunderbird 24.1.1 – Dayron Gallardo Dec 04 '13 at 10:54
1

It works ! BTW, is it possible to remove also empty blank lines before the signature ? – Fedir RYKHTIK Dec 08 '14 at 11:44
2

Note that if there are multiple identities there will be separate setting for each e.g. mail.identity.id1.suppress_signature_separator, mail.identity.id2.suppress_signature_separator etc. – Greendrake Sep 21 '15 at 02:06
WOW! This is the first time I've seen the config editor. I had no idea Icedove/Thunderbird was this configurable. – Hubro Oct 22 '15 at 11:41

score 4 · Answer 2 · answered May 19 '11 at 01:40

4

I researched this recently and found that they will provide a checkbox in either v3.2 or v3.3 to allow users to elect not to show those dashes. Wait.

answered May 19 '11 at 01:40

Jeff

41

I tried this but it doesn't really work. The separator will still be inserted when I create a new mail. Even a restart of TB didn't help. Does anybody know why this doesn't work? – Nov 12 '11 at 11:32

How to get rid of double dash before the signature?

2 Answers2