There are services that provide shortened links, e.g. bit.ly. I don't like such shortened links (or use them) myself as it is unclear as to where they go. So, an alternative is to use html. This provides an 'a' tag which has two components: * the URL * some visible text that is an active clickable link So I could give you https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitly or I could give you: "click [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitly here] to read the wikipedia article on b<b></b>it.l<b></b>y". The link to do that would look like this: &lt;a href="https:<b></b>//en&#46;wiki<b></b>pedia&#46;o<b></b>rg/wiki/Bitly"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; You can do the same in Thunderbird using '''Insert|Link''' on the compose window's menu. All you need to do is paste in the URL and type in the appropriate link text. Use F10 or alt if you don't see a menu in that page.