20 ms·

Thunderbird 91.0

338 points by commoner 5y ago

untoxicness 5y ago
> Ability to change order of accounts in UI I was always perplexed when I had to change the ordering of my accounts and still had to do it manually by editing the configuration after all these years. A big improvement for sure!
- janci 5y ago
  I screwed up the configuration multiple times trying to do this. Thanks god for this feature.
ComodoHacker 5y ago
Congrats for moving to E11s! Who are the current team behind Thunderbird? Are they former/current Mozillians, sparing their free time?
- dagenix 5y ago
  It seems that its being managed by a subsidiary of Mozilla, MZLA Technologies Corporation: https://www.zdnet.com/article/mozilla-moves-to-monetize-thunderbird-transfers-project-to-new-subsidiary/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/mozilla-moves-to-monetize-thun.... Apparently they are hiring: https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/careers/#apply https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/careers/#apply
  - hosteur 5y ago
    Anyone knows how they plan to monetize Thunderbird? I am skeptical about using a "monetized" mail client.
    - callahad 5y ago
      Sustain had a good podcast with Ryan Sipes (Community and Biz Dev Manager for Thunderbird) back in Februrary: https://podcast.sustainoss.org/67 https://podcast.sustainoss.org/67
      - hosteur 5y ago
        Will add that to my queue for later Do you have a TL;DL?
        callahad 5y ago
        I did back in February, but I'm unlikely to be able to completely accurately recount that now. One thing I do remember is Ryan explaining how just being willing to directly ask people for money has been surprisingly effective. It's also worth putting Thunderbird's relationship to Mozilla in proper perspective: for all intents and purposes, Thunderbird is a completely independent project. Since 2017 (https://blog.thunderbird.net/2017/05/thunderbirds-future-home/ https://blog.thunderbird.net/2017/05/thunderbirds-future-hom...), the Mozilla Foundation has primarily acted as Thunderbird's fiscal home, providing support for donations / bookkeeping / taxes / legal matters much in the same way that the Software Freedom Conservancy hosts Git, Homebrew, Inkscape and others, or how Software in the Public Interest hosts PostgreSQL, systemd, Xorg, FFmpeg, 0 A.D, and more. If I understand last year's MZLA Technologies announcement correctly (https://blog.thunderbird.net/2020/01/thunderbirds-new-home/ https://blog.thunderbird.net/2020/01/thunderbirds-new-home/), it sounds similar to the split between the Mozilla Foundation and the Mozilla Corporation, where the former is a legal non-profit and the latter entity is for-profit and able to enter into commercial, revenue-generating agreements, but still wholly owned by the non-profit Foundation. ...But you should really listen to the podcast, I could be getting all of this wildly wrong.
        ryanleesipes 5y ago
        That's pretty much it. Can confirm, as I am Ryan Sipes. We (Thunderbird) are still 99.9% donation supported, so every bit helps.
    - nexuist 5y ago
      Like this: > Why we need donations Thunderbird is no longer funded by Mozilla. Fortunately there is an active community keeping it running and developing it further. But to survive long term, the project needs funding. Thunderbird’s funding goes toward the significant infrastructure and staff that must be maintained to deliver the application to our tens of millions of users. For Thunderbird to survive and continue to evolve, we need your support and ask for your donation today. All the money donated will go directly to funding Thunderbird development and infrastructure. They aren't receiving any funding so there is no expectation of profit. I assume the project will be around so long as enough donations keep coming in to make upkeep worthwhile.
cube00 5y ago
CardDAV address book support Although it's sad that this will replace the plugins that provide this feature, it's good to see support built into the core and a continued investment in implementing standards.
- liotier 5y ago
  I wonder about migration from plugins to that new core feature. I hope it doesn't break anything.
  - hulitu 5y ago
    Migration is also a word which shall be replaced. /s When will this circuss end ? (sorry for using the word circuss)
- davemtl 5y ago
  I welcome the integration, but how'd you even turn it on? Nothing in the settings I can find after installing.
- acidburnNSA 5y ago
  Agreed. I rely heavily on the cardbook add-on for this and will be curious to see how the new built-in support compares.
- josteink 5y ago
  > CardDAV address book support That’s nice. That will make it easy to setup master-data management without additional extensions.
kleiba 5y ago
An email client in this day and age does not receive the attention a web browser does, but Thunderbird has been a steady companion to me over many, many years. Thanks, dev team!
- markenqualitaet 5y ago
  Can you disable 'j' for "move to junk", by now? Worse than not using it for navigation is using hjkl for something else. I cannot not press j by accident. Years ago I had to stop using thunderbird for this.
  - caterama 5y ago
    The wonderful tbkeys [1] extension allows you to configure hjkl navigation in Thunderbird. [1] https://github.com/wshanks/tbkeys https://github.com/wshanks/tbkeys
foray1010 5y ago
seems download link is still not available in the homepage, if u are interested: https://download-installer.cdn.mozilla.net/pub/thunderbird/releases/91.0/mac/en-US/Thunderbird%2091.0.dmg https://download-installer.cdn.mozilla.net/pub/thunderbird/r...
- Kelteseth 5y ago
  And for all other none mac people https://download-installer.cdn.mozilla.net/pub/thunderbird/releases/91.0/ https://download-installer.cdn.mozilla.net/pub/thunderbird/r... Edit: Just installed x64 91 over my 32x Thunderbird 78, no issues so far :)
mimsee 5y ago
I would like to give thanks for building and supporting Thunderbird. I recently found Migadu at the top of HN and decided to give it a go. Now I'm using Thunderbird on all of my OSs (aside from iOS). I wish I could support it financially, but I'm still a student and not loaded with cash.
Tomte 5y ago
Can someone explain what the deal with 91 is? I'm on 78, and no updates are found. On the submission's web site there is "Thunderbird version 91.0 is only offered as direct download from thunderbird.net and not as an upgrade from Thunderbird version 78 or earlier." Why is that? Is upgrading safe? And thunderbird.net only offers me 78, anyway.
- GlitchMr 5y ago
  Updates are delayed to give add-on developers time to update their add-ons to be compatible with Thunderbird 91 if changes are necessary.
  - Kelteseth 5y ago
    Why? Isn't that what alpha and betas are for?
    - tehbeard 5y ago
      There was a pretty significant departure in how the plugin/add-on ecosystem worked iirc. Not just a case of switching out a few deprecated function calls.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - SilverRed 5y ago
      Plugin developers don't bother testing on the betas. They wait until an update breaks things and then work based on user complaints. And who can blame them really, no one pays them to work on these plugins. If you wanted to make sure your plugins worked before an update than you should go test them on a beta yourself. Unfortunately delaying an update doesn't really solve the problem as developers still wait for the "its broken" reports before fixing things.
  - TroisM 5y ago
    They should have done the same with Firefox Mobile... still only about 12 addons available... almost a year after release. I still use Fennec for this reason.
ulrikrasmussen 5y ago
I've used Thunderbird for many years, but recently switched to KMail because that has proper search functionality. In KMail, I can instantly search for a keyword in all my emails from the last one and a half decade, whereas this takes several minutes in Thunderbird, and during the search the UI is unusable because the result list is incrementally populated which makes it impossible to actually click on results reliably, or even just scroll. Other than that, Thunderbird works great. I'm just puzzled why search has not received more attention, as it seems like a pretty important feature to many people. edit: I know about NotMuch by the way, and actually used that to search and then navigated to the result in Thunderbird afterwards by sorting by date. But that got annoying in the long run.
- stinos 5y ago
  Other than that, Thunderbird works great. I've used it for decades and still recommend it to others (mainly becauce I never invested in trying enough other cross-platform alternatives), but 'great' wouldn't be a word I'd use to describe it, there are just so many little quirks and annoyances, to the point I often have the feeling using it is constantly working around and/or ignoring those.
  - ulrikrasmussen 5y ago
    Yes, by "great" I guess I meant "great in comparison to other desktop email clients". KMail for example comes with its own set of quirks and annoyances, many that are similar to Thunderbird's with regards to general UX.
  - markenqualitaet 5y ago
    To me there is not a single client which isn't off somehow, missing something. I feel like nobody really loves mail client development, because email kinda sucks. Mail just needs to die IMO. You wouldn't design something like email today. I wouldn't want to support all the legacy "features" either. It's a wonder someone is caring about these clients at all. It's not like mail is going anywhere soon. Look at the fax. There is many decades of infuriating mail client dependecy ahead.
- 5y ago
vladharbuz 5y ago
Still no conversation view for emails. Might have to roll up my sleeves and do it myself.
- galacticdessert 5y ago
  There is an extension for it -> https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/gmail-conversation-view/ https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/gmail... Not super great visually, but works ok
galacticdessert 5y ago
I really like Thunderbird and I use it as my primary personal email client. Just, where can I pay to speed up the development of this feature? https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=213945 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=213945 I find a proper 3 pane view to be essential in 2021
- anorakoverflow 5y ago
  I completely agree. This is what I check every time there’s news about Thunderbird before I consider switching.
  - Qub3d 5y ago
    What are you using currently? I am limping along with Thunderbird myself but really miss three-pane view.
    - jseigj43 5y ago
      That already exists in thunderbird, what do you mean?
- yorwba 5y ago
  I don't think they have a way for users to fund individual features, but you can help feature development in general by donating: https://give.thunderbird.net https://give.thunderbird.net Since the most recent comments indicate that they have it on the roadmap, I think that would also help the specific feature you care about.
- 542458 5y ago
  Dumb question, but could you find an open source contributor who knows the codebase and commission them to implement it?
  - remuskaos 5y ago
    I've been looking for something like this for numerous projects. If I can't write the code myself, I'd love to pay someone who can, but I don't know where to look.
ximm 5y ago
I am a bit sad that the release notes say nothing about encryption. PGP support was (for me) the big thing about thunderbird 78. It was a bit rough around the edges (in terms of UI and extension support) but I expected it to improve with subsequent releases. Now it sounds like they did not iterate on encryption at all (apart from fixing a few bugs). (This is from reading the release notes. I did not yet have time to test the new version.) Shameless plug: I proposed a patch that would bring the compose UI much closer enigmail: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1669788 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1669788
- gostsamo 5y ago
  Actually, if you search "pgp" you will find that there are a few incremental improvements there.
dotancohen 5y ago
> CardDAV address book support Finally! Until now I've always had to keep my phone and Thunderbird contacts separate. Now I can finally spend a weekend combining the two.
dotancohen 5y ago
> "Master Password" renamed to "Primary Password" How does the term "Primary Password" describe the password which enables access to the list of credentials better than "Master Password"? Are they just entertained by the alliteration?
- kettleballroll 5y ago
  Master/Slave nomenclature is considered "problematic language" (because it harks back to slavery), and thus often replaced with more PC language these days. My organization had a whole "fix this nomenclature throughout the whole codebase" week (things like "black-/whitelist, master/slave, ....)
  - s3tz 5y ago
    Fine, but at least make it consistent then. GitHub uses "main" and now this uses "primary", next someone will use "base" and I'm not sure at all how this is better in any way.
    - bschne 5y ago
      That's hardly in the hands of any one developer to make consistent, and it was hardly entirely consistent before. As long as it makes sense in the context of a given project...
      - handrous 5y ago
        In the context of a master password, it doesn't make sense to change it. It's analogous (closely, but not perfectly) to "master key", a term which non-nerds may be familiar with from the world of physical keys (and which term, in that context, isn't going anywhere, in part because, as with this one, there's no reason whatsoever for it to) so gave normal folks a better handle on what it means and how to use the software.
    - post-it 5y ago
      There's no reason they should be consistent. Different git hosts, sure, but a master branch and master password have nothing in common but the name (which is now different).
anticodon 5y ago
I like Thunderbird, but several months ago a strange bug happened that caused one sent message to overwrite another sent message (IMAP account). I've noticed only because I needed to resend contents of both messages, and I was really surprised to find that Thunderbird overwrote contents of one message with another (Subject of the overwritten message was intact). It was a one time bug and it might be caused by my IMAP provider, not Thunderbird, but still I'm worried. I keep almost all my emails, dating back to middle of 90s (although in different formats and accounts), and I would like to be 100% sure that all of them are intact. Now I don't have that peace of mind.
- shakna 5y ago
  IMAP emails are all addressed by a 32bit UID. Overwriting it would require that you experienced a hash collision, data race, or that your IMAP provider sent out the wrong set of IDs. It's incredibly unlikely to be Thunderbird's fault.
  - anticodon 5y ago
    I've checked again. Only one letter was corrupt and only Subject line was corrupt. I've chosen to fix folder index from folder properties, and voila! The message was fixed. It wasn't an overwritten message or IMAP bug, it was some corruption of the Thunderbird folder index.
    - shakna 5y ago
      That index is originally created by your IMAP provider - they sent the wrong set of IDs (usually because of a race condition). When you run a fix, Thunderbird checks to see if the provider screwed anything up. It was an IMAP bug.
      - jcranmer 5y ago
        Not true. The "folder index" being referred to in Thunderbird is the local .msf database which is constructed by Thunderbird to provide its own local information about messages in the folder. Repairing it means throwing away all the local data and requerying it from the IMAP server (or in the case of a local folder, reparsing the mbox file). The corruption bug likely lay with Thunderbird and not the IMAP server.
pjmlp 5y ago
Thanks for keeping Thunderbird around. Anyone that cares about it, don't forget your donations.
codewiz 5y ago
If you like Gmail's thread view, try the Conversations add-on: https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/gmail-conversation-view/ https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/gmail...
laurent123456 5y ago
I came to see new Thunderbird versions as mostly bad news. Thunderbird as it was 15 years ago was just fine - you can receive emails, you can send emails, and it works well. At least for me own usage anything they've done since then is breaking plugins that I was using and adding new bugs. I've never seen a release where I thought that whatever they've added was useful.
esfandia 5y ago
Are there any plans for full integration of Thunderbird's calendar with iCloud Calendar? I still have to use a web browser to access iCloud Calendar when on Windows, and I don't want to use Outlook.
- themulticaster 5y ago
  There are a few blog posts floating around that explain how to extract your iCloud CalDAV access credentials in order to add iCloud calendars to Thunderbird. Last I checked there is no nice GUI for setting that up, if that is what you're after.
hereme888 5y ago
Well, too bad Mozilla keeps chugging along the political nonsense. People also vote with the software they use and promote.
beertoagunfight 5y ago
What is this talk about Calendar support? Does that mean we don't have to use the lightning calendar extension?
- Lev1a 5y ago
  AFAIK you already don't have to use that addon anymore since at least 78 or even earlier. Eg. my only addon in Thunderbird is "Provider for Google Calendar" so that I can sync my calendar with my Android phone other than that I've not used Lightning in forever.
ycuser2 5y ago
Seems it still doesn't have automatic archives. I want to copy my emails automatically to a defined location without an addon.
- Lev1a 5y ago
  Can't you use Message Filters for that usecase? "Move to" and "Copy to" are available actions there or do you just explicitly want an "Archive" option for the filters?
cpach 5y ago
I’ve given up on desktop e-mail clients. IMHO there’s currently no UI on the market that beats the Gmail UI.
- mdp2021 5y ago
  Which of course you improve upon need /I(rony) Edit: after I wrote the above line, I realized that many people use closed source software... Well ok then.
  - cpach 5y ago
    Sorry, I don’t have great skills when it comes to UI design/UI programming.
    - mdp2021 5y ago
      Actually I was thinking of new features. For example, I developed a software application complementary to Thunderbird that used its DB to offer organizer functions (e.g. ranking of emails for task priority according to different parameters etc.) I realize that many people take what the market offers.
      - cpach 5y ago
        Features is one thing. But I’m quite sure that the Thunderbird team and I don’t share the same philosophy when it comes to UI.
  - mkotowski 5y ago
    To be fair, even if all the software would be open source, one can not simply have both time and mastery level required to improve the programs one uses.
- memling 5y ago
  vivaldi, the successor to opera, has a client in beta. it's not as good as the old m2 client in my opinion but it's quite usable. my main gripes: keyboard navigation still isn't on par, the default is to top quote, no highlight to quote, and no encryption support. this latter doesn't bug me much because no one I know uses it. but it's fast with good search capabilities, automatic indexing, contacts, etc.
hosteur 5y ago
Huh? No Linux version available?
- forgotpwd16 5y ago
  Why are you saying that? There's a Linux version. Although I'ld expect a Linux user to be using their package manager instead anyway. But maybe Thunderbird should eventually release a Flatpak or Snap or AppImage which are cross-distro. https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/all/ https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/all/
  - hosteur 5y ago
    I am saying that because the Linux version of Thunderbird 91 does not seem to be available. If I go to the download page and download the Linux version, I end up with a Thunderbird 78 tarball. Not the 91 one.
    - neogodless 5y ago
      The home page and that download directory are not yet updated to version 91 (for any operating system). See version 91 specific downloads for everyone: https://download-installer.cdn.mozilla.net/pub/thunderbird/releases/91.0/ https://download-installer.cdn.mozilla.net/pub/thunderbird/r...
      - hosteur 5y ago
        Thanks!
  - AdmiralAsshat 5y ago
    >But maybe Thunderbird should eventually release a Flatpak or Snap or AppImage which are cross-distro. https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.mozilla.Thunderbird https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.mozilla.Thunderbird
  - Nasreddin_Hodja 5y ago
    > But maybe Thunderbird should eventually release a Flatpak or Snap I prefer tarballs for its simplicity and lack of dependency on 3rd party infrastructure.
tom7 5y ago
I will continue to use Master btw. SJW will go away at some point. I will remain because I can actually code.
- nyx-aiur 5y ago
  This one right here mods.
cutler 5y ago
The download channels still have this tagged as beta.
dalu 5y ago
They still haven't added a "delete all junk" button. The people working or rather not working on this project are stubborn and backward.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
qwertox 5y ago
> PDF.js viewer now included in Thunderbird Doesn't this unnecessarily increase the attack surface?
- janikvonrotz 5y ago
  I assume it also used by every browser.
- lucideer 5y ago
  Of this 1 individual application, yes. But it's a tradeoff against the user's attack surface of using multiple apps. PDF.js is run in a secure sandbox so has no direct filesystem/OS access, and is very actively maintained (e.g. for Firefox), so it's not unreasonable that it may leave you much less exposed than launching an external app would.
janikvonrotz 5y ago
A lot of new features. Does anybody know why there is such a surge in development? Did any big company adopt Thunderbird?
- cabraca 5y ago
  The Thunderbird Project was transfered to the MZLA Technologies Corporation, a for-profit subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation. https://blog.thunderbird.net/2020/01/thunderbirds-new-home/ https://blog.thunderbird.net/2020/01/thunderbirds-new-home/
forgotpwd16 5y ago
Does Thunderbird share code with Firefox?
- simulo 5y ago
  afaic it does, yes. They try to decouple it, though.
- jcranmer 5y ago
  Thunderbird and Firefox both use the same internal rendering engine (Gecko) and several shared components (Toolkit). In a source checkout, all the code in comm/ is specific to Thunderbird (/ SeaMonkey), and all the code in browser/ is specific to Firefox, and almost everything else is shared betwixt the two.
yakubin 5y ago
> Thunderbird now operates in multi-process (e10s) mode by default What does e10s mean here? UPDATE: I've found an explanation[1]: > In Mozilla documentation "Electrolysis" is often shorted as "e10s". What a silly scheme. [1]: <https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis>
- hosteur 5y ago
  What benefits are there with e10s in a mail client?
  - jannes 5y ago
    I suppose it could be a form of sandboxing the HTML rendering
  - jffry 5y ago
    Two I can think of: - Performance. Rendering emails, especially big HTML emails, in a separate process means that rendering can be offloaded to a different CPU core and that can help keep the main Thunderbird UI more responsive - Security. If HTML email rendering is in its own process it reduces the blast radius of any exploits in the web sandbox. I also vaguely recall from Firefox's work that there might be additional OS-level security restrictions that can be applied on a per-process basis, which you might want for web rendering but can't have for other parts of the email client.
  - dblohm7 5y ago
    I work on Gecko, so I have a bit of context here: A big reason is probably because Gecko no longer officially supports single-process mode.
- foresto 5y ago
  > > In Mozilla documentation "Electrolysis" is often shorted as "e10s". > What a silly scheme. Agreed. It might be more convenient for the person typing, but ironically, it impedes the understanding of their message. See also: i18n, l10n, a11y, k8s.
throw0101a 5y ago
Reminder about "Give to Thunderbird": * https://give.thunderbird.net/ https://give.thunderbird.net/ * Recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28084907 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28084907
mxuribe 5y ago
> Chat: Beta-level support for Matrix servers (set chat.prpls.prpl-matrix.disable to false)... Oh, this is neat! I didn't know matrix support was coming this soon; nice!
mastazi 5y ago
> CardDAV address book support oh wow this is great! I was using a plugin for CardDav integration now I don't need that! Thank you!
mastazi 5y ago
Is it actually out yet? If I attempt downloading from Thunderbird.net, I get 78.13.0, the only way to get 91 is if I select Beta channel.
- jagger27 5y ago
  It's on their FTP server, but I'm seeing the same thing. https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/releases/91.0/ https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/releases/91.0/
  - mastazi 5y ago
    Thank you! As an update for anyone reading this, it is now also available on the main site.
the__alchemist 5y ago
I really want to like Thunderbird, but... I can't do it. Mess of a UI, no clear way to do plain-text emails, and often won't open attachment sent from (enterprise) Outlook.
- Qub3d 5y ago
  useplaintext.email has instructions on using Thunderbird in plaintext mode: https://useplaintext.email/#thunderbird https://useplaintext.email/#thunderbird
happyjack 5y ago
It makes me happy that the Thunderbird project keeps going and is getting funding. Granted, I've tried Thunderbird and have used it in the past, but I can't use it as a daily driver. The lack of integration without plugins for CAL/CARD Dav is irritating, and the notifications don't work as well in GNOME. I can't say I'm in love with Evolution, either, but their restore from backup file and no nonsense approach to email is nice. It's also stable, and although it may not be the best, it is a constant that will likely never change (layout, UI, GNOME integration). It's really nice on RHEL 8 using it for personal and corporate functions all in one with no plugins (read / write, calendar, contacts). It links up to my mailbox.org server no problem. Email is a weird beast these days. For corporate, you're stuck with whatever your employers tells you to do. For personal, chances are you have a gmail and have 46289902834 unread messages that they auto filter for you in an ads tab (being facetious) and force you to use webmail. In HN world, there is a large divide between the "mutt or die" crowd and the "I don't give a shit, webmail, etc." Maybe if developers cared more about email, the applications would be better? I really don't know. It's just an observation and I may be totally wrong or misread the room. Although I don't use the client, I applaud the developers and appreciate them keeping the project going, and knowing if I ever have to use MacOS or Windows in addition to RHEL, I have a cross platform option.
- happyjack 5y ago
  Reading through the change log, it looks like CAL/CARD Dav support is native now! Awesome.
- caterama 5y ago
  > chances are you have a gmail and have 46289902834 unread messages that they auto filter for you in an ads tab (being facetious) and force you to use webmail. A fix for this: 1. Create a label called "Promotions" 2. Create a new filter for Matches: category:promotions, Do this: Skip Inbox, Apply label "Promotions". The Skip Inbox setting means your inbox will stay clean! You can do similar things for the Updates and Forums categories, but don't skip inbox on those.
  - happyjack 5y ago
neogodless 5y ago
Well, one issue I have with this new version is that it has somehow reverted the behavior for opening URLs to using a Thunderbird tab. Figured it out pretty quickly when I tried to use a link and then login, and the form didn't work. Cannot find a setting for this anywhere, and some places suggest installing an Add-On just to change this setting! Tried to follow this: https://www.lifewire.com/change-the-default-browser-in-thunderbird-2532751 https://www.lifewire.com/change-the-default-browser-in-thund... But http/https are not in my list of content providers. Only PDF!

338 points by commoner 5y ago

> Ability to change order of accounts in UI I was always perplexed when I had to change the ordering of my accounts and still had to do it manually by editing the configuration after all these years. A big improvement for sure!

janci 5y ago
I screwed up the configuration multiple times trying to do this. Thanks god for this feature.

ComodoHacker 5y ago

Congrats for moving to E11s! Who are the current team behind Thunderbird? Are they former/current Mozillians, sparing their free time?

dagenix 5y ago
It seems that its being managed by a subsidiary of Mozilla, MZLA Technologies Corporation: https://www.zdnet.com/article/mozilla-moves-to-monetize-thunderbird-transfers-project-to-new-subsidiary/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/mozilla-moves-to-monetize-thun.... Apparently they are hiring: https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/careers/#apply https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/careers/#apply
- hosteur 5y ago
  Anyone knows how they plan to monetize Thunderbird? I am skeptical about using a "monetized" mail client.
  - callahad 5y ago
    Sustain had a good podcast with Ryan Sipes (Community and Biz Dev Manager for Thunderbird) back in Februrary: https://podcast.sustainoss.org/67 https://podcast.sustainoss.org/67
    - hosteur 5y ago
      Will add that to my queue for later Do you have a TL;DL?
      - callahad 5y ago
        I did back in February, but I'm unlikely to be able to completely accurately recount that now. One thing I do remember is Ryan explaining how just being willing to directly ask people for money has been surprisingly effective. It's also worth putting Thunderbird's relationship to Mozilla in proper perspective: for all intents and purposes, Thunderbird is a completely independent project. Since 2017 (https://blog.thunderbird.net/2017/05/thunderbirds-future-home/ https://blog.thunderbird.net/2017/05/thunderbirds-future-hom...), the Mozilla Foundation has primarily acted as Thunderbird's fiscal home, providing support for donations / bookkeeping / taxes / legal matters much in the same way that the Software Freedom Conservancy hosts Git, Homebrew, Inkscape and others, or how Software in the Public Interest hosts PostgreSQL, systemd, Xorg, FFmpeg, 0 A.D, and more. If I understand last year's MZLA Technologies announcement correctly (https://blog.thunderbird.net/2020/01/thunderbirds-new-home/ https://blog.thunderbird.net/2020/01/thunderbirds-new-home/), it sounds similar to the split between the Mozilla Foundation and the Mozilla Corporation, where the former is a legal non-profit and the latter entity is for-profit and able to enter into commercial, revenue-generating agreements, but still wholly owned by the non-profit Foundation. ...But you should really listen to the podcast, I could be getting all of this wildly wrong.
        ryanleesipes 5y ago
        That's pretty much it. Can confirm, as I am Ryan Sipes. We (Thunderbird) are still 99.9% donation supported, so every bit helps.
  - nexuist 5y ago
    Like this: > Why we need donations Thunderbird is no longer funded by Mozilla. Fortunately there is an active community keeping it running and developing it further. But to survive long term, the project needs funding. Thunderbird’s funding goes toward the significant infrastructure and staff that must be maintained to deliver the application to our tens of millions of users. For Thunderbird to survive and continue to evolve, we need your support and ask for your donation today. All the money donated will go directly to funding Thunderbird development and infrastructure. They aren't receiving any funding so there is no expectation of profit. I assume the project will be around so long as enough donations keep coming in to make upkeep worthwhile.

cube00 5y ago

CardDAV address book support Although it's sad that this will replace the plugins that provide this feature, it's good to see support built into the core and a continued investment in implementing standards.

liotier 5y ago
I wonder about migration from plugins to that new core feature. I hope it doesn't break anything.
- hulitu 5y ago
  Migration is also a word which shall be replaced. /s When will this circuss end ? (sorry for using the word circuss)
davemtl 5y ago
I welcome the integration, but how'd you even turn it on? Nothing in the settings I can find after installing.
acidburnNSA 5y ago
Agreed. I rely heavily on the cardbook add-on for this and will be curious to see how the new built-in support compares.
josteink 5y ago
> CardDAV address book support That’s nice. That will make it easy to setup master-data management without additional extensions.

kleiba 5y ago

An email client in this day and age does not receive the attention a web browser does, but Thunderbird has been a steady companion to me over many, many years. Thanks, dev team!

markenqualitaet 5y ago
Can you disable 'j' for "move to junk", by now? Worse than not using it for navigation is using hjkl for something else. I cannot not press j by accident. Years ago I had to stop using thunderbird for this.
- caterama 5y ago
  The wonderful tbkeys [1] extension allows you to configure hjkl navigation in Thunderbird. [1] https://github.com/wshanks/tbkeys https://github.com/wshanks/tbkeys

foray1010 5y ago

seems download link is still not available in the homepage, if u are interested: https://download-installer.cdn.mozilla.net/pub/thunderbird/releases/91.0/mac/en-US/Thunderbird%2091.0.dmg https://download-installer.cdn.mozilla.net/pub/thunderbird/r...

Kelteseth 5y ago
And for all other none mac people https://download-installer.cdn.mozilla.net/pub/thunderbird/releases/91.0/ https://download-installer.cdn.mozilla.net/pub/thunderbird/r... Edit: Just installed x64 91 over my 32x Thunderbird 78, no issues so far :)

mimsee 5y ago

I would like to give thanks for building and supporting Thunderbird. I recently found Migadu at the top of HN and decided to give it a go. Now I'm using Thunderbird on all of my OSs (aside from iOS). I wish I could support it financially, but I'm still a student and not loaded with cash.

Tomte 5y ago

Can someone explain what the deal with 91 is? I'm on 78, and no updates are found. On the submission's web site there is "Thunderbird version 91.0 is only offered as direct download from thunderbird.net and not as an upgrade from Thunderbird version 78 or earlier." Why is that? Is upgrading safe? And thunderbird.net only offers me 78, anyway.

GlitchMr 5y ago
Updates are delayed to give add-on developers time to update their add-ons to be compatible with Thunderbird 91 if changes are necessary.
- Kelteseth 5y ago
  Why? Isn't that what alpha and betas are for?
  - tehbeard 5y ago
    There was a pretty significant departure in how the plugin/add-on ecosystem worked iirc. Not just a case of switching out a few deprecated function calls.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - SilverRed 5y ago
    Plugin developers don't bother testing on the betas. They wait until an update breaks things and then work based on user complaints. And who can blame them really, no one pays them to work on these plugins. If you wanted to make sure your plugins worked before an update than you should go test them on a beta yourself. Unfortunately delaying an update doesn't really solve the problem as developers still wait for the "its broken" reports before fixing things.
- TroisM 5y ago
  They should have done the same with Firefox Mobile... still only about 12 addons available... almost a year after release. I still use Fennec for this reason.

ulrikrasmussen 5y ago

I've used Thunderbird for many years, but recently switched to KMail because that has proper search functionality. In KMail, I can instantly search for a keyword in all my emails from the last one and a half decade, whereas this takes several minutes in Thunderbird, and during the search the UI is unusable because the result list is incrementally populated which makes it impossible to actually click on results reliably, or even just scroll. Other than that, Thunderbird works great. I'm just puzzled why search has not received more attention, as it seems like a pretty important feature to many people. edit: I know about NotMuch by the way, and actually used that to search and then navigated to the result in Thunderbird afterwards by sorting by date. But that got annoying in the long run.

stinos 5y ago
Other than that, Thunderbird works great. I've used it for decades and still recommend it to others (mainly becauce I never invested in trying enough other cross-platform alternatives), but 'great' wouldn't be a word I'd use to describe it, there are just so many little quirks and annoyances, to the point I often have the feeling using it is constantly working around and/or ignoring those.
- ulrikrasmussen 5y ago
  Yes, by "great" I guess I meant "great in comparison to other desktop email clients". KMail for example comes with its own set of quirks and annoyances, many that are similar to Thunderbird's with regards to general UX.
- markenqualitaet 5y ago
  To me there is not a single client which isn't off somehow, missing something. I feel like nobody really loves mail client development, because email kinda sucks. Mail just needs to die IMO. You wouldn't design something like email today. I wouldn't want to support all the legacy "features" either. It's a wonder someone is caring about these clients at all. It's not like mail is going anywhere soon. Look at the fax. There is many decades of infuriating mail client dependecy ahead.
5y ago

vladharbuz 5y ago

Still no conversation view for emails. Might have to roll up my sleeves and do it myself.

galacticdessert 5y ago
There is an extension for it -> https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/gmail-conversation-view/ https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/gmail... Not super great visually, but works ok

galacticdessert 5y ago

I really like Thunderbird and I use it as my primary personal email client. Just, where can I pay to speed up the development of this feature? https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=213945 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=213945 I find a proper 3 pane view to be essential in 2021

anorakoverflow 5y ago
I completely agree. This is what I check every time there’s news about Thunderbird before I consider switching.
- Qub3d 5y ago
  What are you using currently? I am limping along with Thunderbird myself but really miss three-pane view.
  - jseigj43 5y ago
    That already exists in thunderbird, what do you mean?
yorwba 5y ago
I don't think they have a way for users to fund individual features, but you can help feature development in general by donating: https://give.thunderbird.net https://give.thunderbird.net Since the most recent comments indicate that they have it on the roadmap, I think that would also help the specific feature you care about.
542458 5y ago
Dumb question, but could you find an open source contributor who knows the codebase and commission them to implement it?
- remuskaos 5y ago
  I've been looking for something like this for numerous projects. If I can't write the code myself, I'd love to pay someone who can, but I don't know where to look.

ximm 5y ago

I am a bit sad that the release notes say nothing about encryption. PGP support was (for me) the big thing about thunderbird 78. It was a bit rough around the edges (in terms of UI and extension support) but I expected it to improve with subsequent releases. Now it sounds like they did not iterate on encryption at all (apart from fixing a few bugs). (This is from reading the release notes. I did not yet have time to test the new version.) Shameless plug: I proposed a patch that would bring the compose UI much closer enigmail: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1669788 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1669788

gostsamo 5y ago
Actually, if you search "pgp" you will find that there are a few incremental improvements there.

dotancohen 5y ago

> CardDAV address book support Finally! Until now I've always had to keep my phone and Thunderbird contacts separate. Now I can finally spend a weekend combining the two.

dotancohen 5y ago

> "Master Password" renamed to "Primary Password" How does the term "Primary Password" describe the password which enables access to the list of credentials better than "Master Password"? Are they just entertained by the alliteration?

kettleballroll 5y ago
Master/Slave nomenclature is considered "problematic language" (because it harks back to slavery), and thus often replaced with more PC language these days. My organization had a whole "fix this nomenclature throughout the whole codebase" week (things like "black-/whitelist, master/slave, ....)
- s3tz 5y ago
  Fine, but at least make it consistent then. GitHub uses "main" and now this uses "primary", next someone will use "base" and I'm not sure at all how this is better in any way.
  - bschne 5y ago
    That's hardly in the hands of any one developer to make consistent, and it was hardly entirely consistent before. As long as it makes sense in the context of a given project...
    - handrous 5y ago
      In the context of a master password, it doesn't make sense to change it. It's analogous (closely, but not perfectly) to "master key", a term which non-nerds may be familiar with from the world of physical keys (and which term, in that context, isn't going anywhere, in part because, as with this one, there's no reason whatsoever for it to) so gave normal folks a better handle on what it means and how to use the software.
  - post-it 5y ago
    There's no reason they should be consistent. Different git hosts, sure, but a master branch and master password have nothing in common but the name (which is now different).

anticodon 5y ago

I like Thunderbird, but several months ago a strange bug happened that caused one sent message to overwrite another sent message (IMAP account). I've noticed only because I needed to resend contents of both messages, and I was really surprised to find that Thunderbird overwrote contents of one message with another (Subject of the overwritten message was intact). It was a one time bug and it might be caused by my IMAP provider, not Thunderbird, but still I'm worried. I keep almost all my emails, dating back to middle of 90s (although in different formats and accounts), and I would like to be 100% sure that all of them are intact. Now I don't have that peace of mind.

shakna 5y ago
IMAP emails are all addressed by a 32bit UID. Overwriting it would require that you experienced a hash collision, data race, or that your IMAP provider sent out the wrong set of IDs. It's incredibly unlikely to be Thunderbird's fault.
- anticodon 5y ago
  I've checked again. Only one letter was corrupt and only Subject line was corrupt. I've chosen to fix folder index from folder properties, and voila! The message was fixed. It wasn't an overwritten message or IMAP bug, it was some corruption of the Thunderbird folder index.
  - shakna 5y ago
    That index is originally created by your IMAP provider - they sent the wrong set of IDs (usually because of a race condition). When you run a fix, Thunderbird checks to see if the provider screwed anything up. It was an IMAP bug.
    - jcranmer 5y ago
      Not true. The "folder index" being referred to in Thunderbird is the local .msf database which is constructed by Thunderbird to provide its own local information about messages in the folder. Repairing it means throwing away all the local data and requerying it from the IMAP server (or in the case of a local folder, reparsing the mbox file). The corruption bug likely lay with Thunderbird and not the IMAP server.

pjmlp 5y ago

Thanks for keeping Thunderbird around. Anyone that cares about it, don't forget your donations.

codewiz 5y ago

If you like Gmail's thread view, try the Conversations add-on: https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/gmail-conversation-view/ https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/gmail...

laurent123456 5y ago

I came to see new Thunderbird versions as mostly bad news. Thunderbird as it was 15 years ago was just fine - you can receive emails, you can send emails, and it works well. At least for me own usage anything they've done since then is breaking plugins that I was using and adding new bugs. I've never seen a release where I thought that whatever they've added was useful.

esfandia 5y ago

Are there any plans for full integration of Thunderbird's calendar with iCloud Calendar? I still have to use a web browser to access iCloud Calendar when on Windows, and I don't want to use Outlook.

themulticaster 5y ago
There are a few blog posts floating around that explain how to extract your iCloud CalDAV access credentials in order to add iCloud calendars to Thunderbird. Last I checked there is no nice GUI for setting that up, if that is what you're after.

hereme888 5y ago

Well, too bad Mozilla keeps chugging along the political nonsense. People also vote with the software they use and promote.

beertoagunfight 5y ago

What is this talk about Calendar support? Does that mean we don't have to use the lightning calendar extension?

Lev1a 5y ago
AFAIK you already don't have to use that addon anymore since at least 78 or even earlier. Eg. my only addon in Thunderbird is "Provider for Google Calendar" so that I can sync my calendar with my Android phone other than that I've not used Lightning in forever.

ycuser2 5y ago

Seems it still doesn't have automatic archives. I want to copy my emails automatically to a defined location without an addon.

Lev1a 5y ago
Can't you use Message Filters for that usecase? "Move to" and "Copy to" are available actions there or do you just explicitly want an "Archive" option for the filters?

cpach 5y ago

I’ve given up on desktop e-mail clients. IMHO there’s currently no UI on the market that beats the Gmail UI.

mdp2021 5y ago
Which of course you improve upon need /I(rony) Edit: after I wrote the above line, I realized that many people use closed source software... Well ok then.
- cpach 5y ago
  Sorry, I don’t have great skills when it comes to UI design/UI programming.
  - mdp2021 5y ago
    Actually I was thinking of new features. For example, I developed a software application complementary to Thunderbird that used its DB to offer organizer functions (e.g. ranking of emails for task priority according to different parameters etc.) I realize that many people take what the market offers.
    - cpach 5y ago
      Features is one thing. But I’m quite sure that the Thunderbird team and I don’t share the same philosophy when it comes to UI.
- mkotowski 5y ago
  To be fair, even if all the software would be open source, one can not simply have both time and mastery level required to improve the programs one uses.
memling 5y ago
vivaldi, the successor to opera, has a client in beta. it's not as good as the old m2 client in my opinion but it's quite usable. my main gripes: keyboard navigation still isn't on par, the default is to top quote, no highlight to quote, and no encryption support. this latter doesn't bug me much because no one I know uses it. but it's fast with good search capabilities, automatic indexing, contacts, etc.

hosteur 5y ago

Huh? No Linux version available?

forgotpwd16 5y ago
Why are you saying that? There's a Linux version. Although I'ld expect a Linux user to be using their package manager instead anyway. But maybe Thunderbird should eventually release a Flatpak or Snap or AppImage which are cross-distro. https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/all/ https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/all/
- hosteur 5y ago
  I am saying that because the Linux version of Thunderbird 91 does not seem to be available. If I go to the download page and download the Linux version, I end up with a Thunderbird 78 tarball. Not the 91 one.
  - neogodless 5y ago
    The home page and that download directory are not yet updated to version 91 (for any operating system). See version 91 specific downloads for everyone: https://download-installer.cdn.mozilla.net/pub/thunderbird/releases/91.0/ https://download-installer.cdn.mozilla.net/pub/thunderbird/r...
    - hosteur 5y ago
      Thanks!
- AdmiralAsshat 5y ago
  >But maybe Thunderbird should eventually release a Flatpak or Snap or AppImage which are cross-distro. https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.mozilla.Thunderbird https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.mozilla.Thunderbird
- Nasreddin_Hodja 5y ago
  > But maybe Thunderbird should eventually release a Flatpak or Snap I prefer tarballs for its simplicity and lack of dependency on 3rd party infrastructure.

tom7 5y ago

I will continue to use Master btw. SJW will go away at some point. I will remain because I can actually code.

nyx-aiur 5y ago
This one right here mods.

cutler 5y ago

The download channels still have this tagged as beta.

dalu 5y ago

They still haven't added a "delete all junk" button. The people working or rather not working on this project are stubborn and backward.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

qwertox 5y ago

> PDF.js viewer now included in Thunderbird Doesn't this unnecessarily increase the attack surface?

janikvonrotz 5y ago
I assume it also used by every browser.
lucideer 5y ago
Of this 1 individual application, yes. But it's a tradeoff against the user's attack surface of using multiple apps. PDF.js is run in a secure sandbox so has no direct filesystem/OS access, and is very actively maintained (e.g. for Firefox), so it's not unreasonable that it may leave you much less exposed than launching an external app would.

janikvonrotz 5y ago

A lot of new features. Does anybody know why there is such a surge in development? Did any big company adopt Thunderbird?

cabraca 5y ago
The Thunderbird Project was transfered to the MZLA Technologies Corporation, a for-profit subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation. https://blog.thunderbird.net/2020/01/thunderbirds-new-home/ https://blog.thunderbird.net/2020/01/thunderbirds-new-home/

forgotpwd16 5y ago

Does Thunderbird share code with Firefox?

simulo 5y ago
afaic it does, yes. They try to decouple it, though.
jcranmer 5y ago
Thunderbird and Firefox both use the same internal rendering engine (Gecko) and several shared components (Toolkit). In a source checkout, all the code in comm/ is specific to Thunderbird (/ SeaMonkey), and all the code in browser/ is specific to Firefox, and almost everything else is shared betwixt the two.

yakubin 5y ago

> Thunderbird now operates in multi-process (e10s) mode by default What does e10s mean here? UPDATE: I've found an explanation[1]: > In Mozilla documentation "Electrolysis" is often shorted as "e10s". What a silly scheme. [1]: <https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis>

hosteur 5y ago
What benefits are there with e10s in a mail client?
- jannes 5y ago
  I suppose it could be a form of sandboxing the HTML rendering
- jffry 5y ago
  Two I can think of: - Performance. Rendering emails, especially big HTML emails, in a separate process means that rendering can be offloaded to a different CPU core and that can help keep the main Thunderbird UI more responsive - Security. If HTML email rendering is in its own process it reduces the blast radius of any exploits in the web sandbox. I also vaguely recall from Firefox's work that there might be additional OS-level security restrictions that can be applied on a per-process basis, which you might want for web rendering but can't have for other parts of the email client.
- dblohm7 5y ago
  I work on Gecko, so I have a bit of context here: A big reason is probably because Gecko no longer officially supports single-process mode.
foresto 5y ago
> > In Mozilla documentation "Electrolysis" is often shorted as "e10s". > What a silly scheme. Agreed. It might be more convenient for the person typing, but ironically, it impedes the understanding of their message. See also: i18n, l10n, a11y, k8s.

throw0101a 5y ago

Reminder about "Give to Thunderbird": * https://give.thunderbird.net/ https://give.thunderbird.net/ * Recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28084907 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28084907

mxuribe 5y ago

> Chat: Beta-level support for Matrix servers (set chat.prpls.prpl-matrix.disable to false)... Oh, this is neat! I didn't know matrix support was coming this soon; nice!

mastazi 5y ago

> CardDAV address book support oh wow this is great! I was using a plugin for CardDav integration now I don't need that! Thank you!

mastazi 5y ago

Is it actually out yet? If I attempt downloading from Thunderbird.net, I get 78.13.0, the only way to get 91 is if I select Beta channel.

jagger27 5y ago
It's on their FTP server, but I'm seeing the same thing. https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/releases/91.0/ https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/releases/91.0/
- mastazi 5y ago
  Thank you! As an update for anyone reading this, it is now also available on the main site.

the__alchemist 5y ago

I really want to like Thunderbird, but... I can't do it. Mess of a UI, no clear way to do plain-text emails, and often won't open attachment sent from (enterprise) Outlook.

Qub3d 5y ago
useplaintext.email has instructions on using Thunderbird in plaintext mode: https://useplaintext.email/#thunderbird https://useplaintext.email/#thunderbird

happyjack 5y ago

It makes me happy that the Thunderbird project keeps going and is getting funding. Granted, I've tried Thunderbird and have used it in the past, but I can't use it as a daily driver. The lack of integration without plugins for CAL/CARD Dav is irritating, and the notifications don't work as well in GNOME. I can't say I'm in love with Evolution, either, but their restore from backup file and no nonsense approach to email is nice. It's also stable, and although it may not be the best, it is a constant that will likely never change (layout, UI, GNOME integration). It's really nice on RHEL 8 using it for personal and corporate functions all in one with no plugins (read / write, calendar, contacts). It links up to my mailbox.org server no problem. Email is a weird beast these days. For corporate, you're stuck with whatever your employers tells you to do. For personal, chances are you have a gmail and have 46289902834 unread messages that they auto filter for you in an ads tab (being facetious) and force you to use webmail. In HN world, there is a large divide between the "mutt or die" crowd and the "I don't give a shit, webmail, etc." Maybe if developers cared more about email, the applications would be better? I really don't know. It's just an observation and I may be totally wrong or misread the room. Although I don't use the client, I applaud the developers and appreciate them keeping the project going, and knowing if I ever have to use MacOS or Windows in addition to RHEL, I have a cross platform option.

happyjack 5y ago
Reading through the change log, it looks like CAL/CARD Dav support is native now! Awesome.
caterama 5y ago
> chances are you have a gmail and have 46289902834 unread messages that they auto filter for you in an ads tab (being facetious) and force you to use webmail. A fix for this: 1. Create a label called "Promotions" 2. Create a new filter for Matches: category:promotions, Do this: Skip Inbox, Apply label "Promotions". The Skip Inbox setting means your inbox will stay clean! You can do similar things for the Updates and Forums categories, but don't skip inbox on those.
- happyjack 5y ago

neogodless 5y ago

Well, one issue I have with this new version is that it has somehow reverted the behavior for opening URLs to using a Thunderbird tab. Figured it out pretty quickly when I tried to use a link and then login, and the form didn't work. Cannot find a setting for this anywhere, and some places suggest installing an Add-On just to change this setting! Tried to follow this: https://www.lifewire.com/change-the-default-browser-in-thunderbird-2532751 https://www.lifewire.com/change-the-default-browser-in-thund... But http/https are not in my list of content providers. Only PDF!