Office QAT Email not using system default (Thunderbird)

My company recent moved from Office 2019 to the new 365 version and I'm finding it to be the buggiest version of office to date. Also using the lastest Windows 10 Pro if that makes a difference.

I've added the email button to the QAT as I send a lot of documents back and forth after editing. On 2019, it would open a new email in Thunderbird (my companies preferred email client) but on 365, it keeps opening an Outlook window and asking me to setup an outlook profile.

Thunderbird is the default in windows, I've tried setting up an outlook profile, deleted it too, but to no avail. Office keeps trying to get me to use Outlook no matter what I tell it.

Any suggestions on how to fix this or is it just MS trying to force you to use their apps?

I stand to be corrected but I think Office 365 is so intertwined with Outlook that getting it to default to Thunderbird could be problematic. See: -

Outlook for Microsoft 365 cheat sheet | Computerworld

Maybe someone knows of how to force Office 365 to use TB. It will be interesting to find out the answer.

wiganken said:

I stand to be corrected but I think Office 365 is so intertwined with Outlook that getting it to default to Thunderbird could be problematic. See: -

Outlook for Microsoft 365 cheat sheet | Computerworld

Maybe someone knows of how to force Office 365 to use TB. It will be interesting to find out the answer.

Surely MS can't be trying to force you to use outlook, it's an anti-competition lawsuit waiting to happen. To choose the Default extensions in office settings, it asks you to change the defaults in windows settings. But as MS don't actually seem to test their own products, it doesn't work properly.

Was hoping there was a fix somewhere

I tested the 'Email' icon on my Office 2019, which is installed on my computer, not cloud based, and it launched Thunderbird so working ok here.

Just guessing here but Office 365 and Outlook are both cloud-based so that means you are working in-the-cloud and not with files residing on your computer. Maybe this is why Office 365 doesn't 'see' your default email client on your computer and so cannot launch it?

I'm working mainly with files saved locally and occasionally on my companies cloud storage. I'm not using any of the OneDrive features of 365

I'm out of ideas so I hope someone else will be able to help you. The following website is dedicated to MS Office and has some very good people there to help. If you do post there remember to include a link to this thread so that they can see what has already been tried in order to prevent them from repeating suggestions.

Microsoft Office Forums - Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Project

Randomly managed to solve this, just thought I'd post an update for anyone with similar issues.

Setting the default email client in Windows to Thunderbird still defaults to Outlook for some reason. Inside Thunderbird Preferences, under System Integration, there's a checkbox "Always check to see if Thunderbird is the default mail client on startup". Seems like that option does more than just checking; once ticked the windows shortcuts started opening Thunderbird.