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> "2. I would like to see a mobile app." Opposite stance: please, Mozilla, do not build mobile Thunderbird apps. That's tremendous effort, and IMHO too much fo

> "2. I would like to see a mobile app." Opposite stance: please, Mozilla, do not build mobile Thunderbird apps. That's tremendous effort, and IMHO too much for what you can do with the priority on Firefox, even with these new Thunderbird hires. Focus on polishing and maintaining the existing Thunderbird the best you can with the limited resources you have for the project. You have a large existing userbase that will be extremely thankful for that.

ekianjo 9y ago
and K9 on Android is not a bad client. It seems like people are not aware of it much.
- CaptSpify 9y ago
  It's the best mobile client I've used, but thats not saying much. It doesn't make me sad, which is the best I can say about it
  - Sylos 9y ago
    I mean, I don't know about you, but that seems to be the fate of any mail client. "Doesn't make me sad" is the highest rating that any mail client, web-based or not, has ever gotten from me.
- mondoshawan 9y ago
  It's not a /good/ client, either. It's adequate, but has a long way to go to clean up it's UX and normal reading flow.
  - cvwright 9y ago
    No argument here. But is it any worse than Thunderbird?
    - Arkanosis 9y ago
      My own take on this point: for my neither trivial nor very advanced needs, K9 at least lacks: - hierarchical display of email threads; - search that actually works. That being said, I'm rather happy with K9, and I'd certainly prefer to see energy spent in making it even better than in making a “Mobile Thunderbird” from scratch.
      - javitury 9y ago
        > search that actually works If search works fast on Thunderbird is because it keeps all emails in your local hdd. To be fair you should also set the option account settings > fetching mail > local folder size to 'all' in K9.
        Nux 9y ago
        That's a bit overkill for a phone. I recommend enabling server side search in Account Settings, much easier on resources.
        Arkanosis 9y ago
        It doesn't work well either in my experience. Not sure if K9 is really the one to blame, or the IMAP server (Gmail, in my case). As Thunderbird indeed does search locally, it isn't impacted by poor server side search anyway. Thanks for the suggestion, though.
        Arkanosis 9y ago
        Thanks a lot for the suggestion! It was set to 100… that's a terrible default for a phone with 64 GiB onboard storage…
      - ntnn 9y ago
        You should try AquaMail. The search works. Threads aren't shows as a tree, sadly, but they are grouped into a folder - not ideal but you can at least follow simple conversations. Still not something for mailing lists. Additionally, AquaMail can handle nested folders, which K9 doesn't and never will, according to its developers.
- drc0 9y ago
  with a polished UI it could be better, the protocol and options support are fine.
Vinnl 9y ago
Thunderbird is not maintained by Mozilla, and those new hires are not by Mozilla, so it should not affect Firefox. It might affect desktop Thunderbird, of course.
- rocky1138 9y ago
  It's confusing that people keep saying Thunderbird is separate from Mozilla but here we have a blog post posted on Mozilla's blog.
  - Faark 9y ago
    And their job posting was on mozilla.org. As is their bug tracking. And their conference team was stationed at the Mozilla booth. According to Wikipedia, even what they intent to be is hard to call independent from an outside perspective: > On May 9, 2017, Philipp Kewisch announced that the Mozilla Foundation will continue to serve as the legal and fiscal home for the Thunderbird project, but that Thunderbird will migrate off Mozilla Corporation infrastructure, separating the operational aspects of the project.
    - digi_owl 9y ago
      Welcome to present day FOSS. Just watch the number of supposed independent projects that are created and/or maintained by a small handful of corporations. And they maintain control what may well be a variant of embrace extend extinguish. Meaning that they churn the code so much with changes that a would be fork has to have the backing of a similarly resourceful organization.
    - rocky1138 9y ago
      I don't mean to be a weenie about it. I really truly appreciate what the Thunderbird team and Mozilla team are up to and have donated in the past. I also understand that the Thunderbird team is super small, as well. As an outsider, I guess I just don't understand how they are separate :)
hendersoon 9y ago
Splitting focus to create a mobile client while the desktop client all their remaining loyal users actually care about lies moribund is a great idea! But it just isn't thinking far enough outside the box. What they really should do is create an entire Thunderbird OS based on web technologies and XUL, and sell it to mobile phone manufacturers! It could be huge! I'm full of great ideas. Have they considered that email client interfaces are hard to understand for your grandparents? Maybe they could make it look like your living room, with each piece of email a book on a shelf. And they could have a cute little animatronic talking bluebird that you could ask for help-- call it, I dunno, want something non-threatening... Thunderbird Bob! One more? Short but sweet-- Thunderbird Vista! Really, the possibilities are endless.
venomsnake 9y ago
Enigmail ...
dorp 9y ago
Thunderbird would look really bad if it was for mobile. It would just be a generic mail app due to the limited screen real estate.
jerrac 9y ago
I'm going to chime in and say I want Thunderbird on Android. Preferably with the ability to sync settings and data from and to my desktop and laptop. Also, frankly, there are so many email clients out there for Android, that it's a pain trying to finding something trustworthy. Thunderbird would be something I can trust.
- Sylos 9y ago
  Don't think you can go more than two scrolls in these comments without having it smacked into your face repeatedly, but K-9 Mail is that. It's open-source and by a long shot the most popular open-source client (except maybe the AOSP client, but that one's not exactly good). https://f-droid.org/app/com.fsck.k9 https://f-droid.org/app/com.fsck.k9
  - jerrac 9y ago
    A little late in replying, but the fact I had never heard of K-9 until this HN post kinda proves my point about name recognition. Last year I actually tried 5 or more different Android clients. I didn't try K-9, if it I even saw it. I must have judged it as untrustworthy or not worth trying for some reason.
fencepost 9y ago
> please, Mozilla, do not build mobile Thunderbird apps 100% agreed. Thunderbird for many years was (or was perceived as) moribund and now that it's showing more signs of life people are pushing to add mobile clients as well as desktop? Are those people trying to kill it off?
j45 9y ago
I'll add to the mix - there needs to be an equivalent of Thunderbird on Android. Aquamail is the most feature complete service there was, and now it's been acquired. A major Thunderbird and Firefox distraction was their shared codebase. If the new Firefox can do what it can, maybe there could be another codebase that compiles well to multiple platforms, maybe even the first mainstream webassembly app.

ekianjo 9y ago

and K9 on Android is not a bad client. It seems like people are not aware of it much.

CaptSpify 9y ago
It's the best mobile client I've used, but thats not saying much. It doesn't make me sad, which is the best I can say about it
- Sylos 9y ago
  I mean, I don't know about you, but that seems to be the fate of any mail client. "Doesn't make me sad" is the highest rating that any mail client, web-based or not, has ever gotten from me.
mondoshawan 9y ago
It's not a /good/ client, either. It's adequate, but has a long way to go to clean up it's UX and normal reading flow.
- cvwright 9y ago
  No argument here. But is it any worse than Thunderbird?
  - Arkanosis 9y ago
    My own take on this point: for my neither trivial nor very advanced needs, K9 at least lacks: - hierarchical display of email threads; - search that actually works. That being said, I'm rather happy with K9, and I'd certainly prefer to see energy spent in making it even better than in making a “Mobile Thunderbird” from scratch.
    - javitury 9y ago
      > search that actually works If search works fast on Thunderbird is because it keeps all emails in your local hdd. To be fair you should also set the option account settings > fetching mail > local folder size to 'all' in K9.
      - Nux 9y ago
        That's a bit overkill for a phone. I recommend enabling server side search in Account Settings, much easier on resources.
        Arkanosis 9y ago
        It doesn't work well either in my experience. Not sure if K9 is really the one to blame, or the IMAP server (Gmail, in my case). As Thunderbird indeed does search locally, it isn't impacted by poor server side search anyway. Thanks for the suggestion, though.
      - Arkanosis 9y ago
        Thanks a lot for the suggestion! It was set to 100… that's a terrible default for a phone with 64 GiB onboard storage…
    - ntnn 9y ago
      You should try AquaMail. The search works. Threads aren't shows as a tree, sadly, but they are grouped into a folder - not ideal but you can at least follow simple conversations. Still not something for mailing lists. Additionally, AquaMail can handle nested folders, which K9 doesn't and never will, according to its developers.
drc0 9y ago
with a polished UI it could be better, the protocol and options support are fine.

Vinnl 9y ago

Thunderbird is not maintained by Mozilla, and those new hires are not by Mozilla, so it should not affect Firefox. It might affect desktop Thunderbird, of course.

rocky1138 9y ago
It's confusing that people keep saying Thunderbird is separate from Mozilla but here we have a blog post posted on Mozilla's blog.
- Faark 9y ago
  And their job posting was on mozilla.org. As is their bug tracking. And their conference team was stationed at the Mozilla booth. According to Wikipedia, even what they intent to be is hard to call independent from an outside perspective: > On May 9, 2017, Philipp Kewisch announced that the Mozilla Foundation will continue to serve as the legal and fiscal home for the Thunderbird project, but that Thunderbird will migrate off Mozilla Corporation infrastructure, separating the operational aspects of the project.
  - digi_owl 9y ago
    Welcome to present day FOSS. Just watch the number of supposed independent projects that are created and/or maintained by a small handful of corporations. And they maintain control what may well be a variant of embrace extend extinguish. Meaning that they churn the code so much with changes that a would be fork has to have the backing of a similarly resourceful organization.
  - rocky1138 9y ago
    I don't mean to be a weenie about it. I really truly appreciate what the Thunderbird team and Mozilla team are up to and have donated in the past. I also understand that the Thunderbird team is super small, as well. As an outsider, I guess I just don't understand how they are separate :)

hendersoon 9y ago

Splitting focus to create a mobile client while the desktop client all their remaining loyal users actually care about lies moribund is a great idea! But it just isn't thinking far enough outside the box. What they really should do is create an entire Thunderbird OS based on web technologies and XUL, and sell it to mobile phone manufacturers! It could be huge! I'm full of great ideas. Have they considered that email client interfaces are hard to understand for your grandparents? Maybe they could make it look like your living room, with each piece of email a book on a shelf. And they could have a cute little animatronic talking bluebird that you could ask for help-- call it, I dunno, want something non-threatening... Thunderbird Bob! One more? Short but sweet-- Thunderbird Vista! Really, the possibilities are endless.

venomsnake 9y ago

Enigmail ...

dorp 9y ago

Thunderbird would look really bad if it was for mobile. It would just be a generic mail app due to the limited screen real estate.

jerrac 9y ago

I'm going to chime in and say I want Thunderbird on Android. Preferably with the ability to sync settings and data from and to my desktop and laptop. Also, frankly, there are so many email clients out there for Android, that it's a pain trying to finding something trustworthy. Thunderbird would be something I can trust.

Sylos 9y ago
Don't think you can go more than two scrolls in these comments without having it smacked into your face repeatedly, but K-9 Mail is that. It's open-source and by a long shot the most popular open-source client (except maybe the AOSP client, but that one's not exactly good). https://f-droid.org/app/com.fsck.k9 https://f-droid.org/app/com.fsck.k9
- jerrac 9y ago
  A little late in replying, but the fact I had never heard of K-9 until this HN post kinda proves my point about name recognition. Last year I actually tried 5 or more different Android clients. I didn't try K-9, if it I even saw it. I must have judged it as untrustworthy or not worth trying for some reason.

fencepost 9y ago

> please, Mozilla, do not build mobile Thunderbird apps 100% agreed. Thunderbird for many years was (or was perceived as) moribund and now that it's showing more signs of life people are pushing to add mobile clients as well as desktop? Are those people trying to kill it off?

j45 9y ago

I'll add to the mix - there needs to be an equivalent of Thunderbird on Android. Aquamail is the most feature complete service there was, and now it's been acquired. A major Thunderbird and Firefox distraction was their shared codebase. If the new Firefox can do what it can, maybe there could be another codebase that compiles well to multiple platforms, maybe even the first mainstream webassembly app.