7 ms·

Thunderbird for Android Now Available

rany_ 2y ago
Why didn't they just rename K-9 instead? I just gave it a try and it really is just K-9 with slight UI tweaks.
- kevincox 2y ago
  They did rename K-9. They just also have been making lots of improvements to K-9. They still have two different apps, Thunderbird Mobile and K-9, but the only difference is the branding. All of the UI tweaks other than the icons and colours are in both apps. The functionality is identical. So other than not deleting K-9 it is a rename (I guess it is a hard link, not a rename).
  - anta40 2y ago
    >> making lots of improvements to K-9 Such as...?
- prmoustache 2y ago
  That is just one of the downsides of the "stores" and basic package managers which do not have dependencies management where you can't do a transitional package.
  - tslocum 2y ago
    Why is a transitional package necessary? Surely all of this isn't just to change the package name, which 99% of users won't see or care about.
    - prmoustache 2y ago
      I believe it is. Current k9mail and thunderbird are the exact same codebase and exact same dev team.
crossroadsguy 2y ago
I believe they will be deleting K-9 from play store after giving its users adequate warming and informing them assuaging them. It's just K-9 right now named Thunderbird. I hope they bring in some important Thunderbird desktop features to mobile as well. The release is underwhelming if not downright disappointing.
- dugite-code 2y ago
  They have stated in the past that K-9 will stick around with just the Icon, name and colour scheme differing.
- forbiddenlake 2y ago
  Why do you believe that?
NoboruWataya 2y ago
I've been happy with FairEmail but I think I will give this a try when it hits F-Droid. At this stage it's mainly curiosity, but if they get new features like sync with desktop down the line it will be great.
- figmert 2y ago
  I tried it not long ago. It's nowhere near as polished and good as FairEmail, unfortunately. I didn't last more than a week. There was a lot missing.
  - aquariusDue 2y ago
    Yeah, FairEmail is great. Personally I can't sing its praises enough. I'm thinking of upgrading to Pro for the home screen widgets too. I also find it surprisingly user friendly, the UI is easy to navigate and the advanced stuff is pretty well communicated e.g. templates and mailbox rules.
- metasaval 2y ago
  I've kept TB Beta installed but still go back to FairEmail. But I'm not an email power user, I really only stick to it because the widgets are better. No dark mode for the K9/TB widget is a dealbreaker. And even then FairEmail goes beyond that in allowing transparent widgets. Will keep checking back in over time.
- red_trumpet 2y ago
  K-9 Mail is on F-Droid, if you want to give it a try.
gaiagraphia 2y ago
Is there a reason why Mozilla haven't used their position and funding to just hoover up all the most successful open source projects to create a more cohesive ecosystem? Surely any addons - like uBlock Origin - which have massive usage should just be baked in to the browser by this point? The likes of Nextcloud and Mattermost would also be great additions in trying to create a true rival to Microsoft and Google's offerings. Gives open source projects funding and development, Mozilla gets new avenues for subscription money to try and be more independent, and MS/Google's market shares can be chipped away at. Win win win. Potential anti-trust bait when Google start crying and withdrawing funding, too.
- AlienRobot 2y ago
  Why would Youtube, which makes money off ads, allow a web browser that blocks ads to access Youtube when they could just refuse to serve their user agent?
  - worble 2y ago
    They currently allow Brave which does that. If a major website starting blocking user agents for any reason other than compatibility then all that would do is trigger (finally) the deprecation of user agents strings as browsers would all just pretend to be each other.
    - ssl-3 2y ago
      It would just be yet another zero-sum meta-war, with web browsers ultimately using randomized user agent strings just as mobiles randomize MAC addresses. But none of that means that the war somehow can't or won't occur.
    - AlienRobot 2y ago
      Brave and Vivaldi can probably get away with it because they're just a Chromium re-skin. Firefox uses Gecko instead of Webkit. They can't change their user agent string.
  - BizarroLand 2y ago
nxtbl 2y ago
They are keeping both: "Quite a few people seem to love K-9 Mail and have asked us to keep the robot dog around. We believe it should be relatively little effort to build two apps from one code base. The apps would be virtually identical and only differ in app name, app icon, and the color scheme. So our current plan is to keep K-9 Mail around." https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/12/when-will-thunderbird-for-android-be-released/ https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/12/when-will-thunderbird-f...
- nixosbestos 2y ago
  Isn't that something a single App can do? I have some apps that allow you to change their icon, at least... I guess if you have a CI pipeline it's easy to copy/paste or add a Matrix job, but it seems like an odd choice.
  - Timon3 2y ago
    Not if you want to keep previous app installations updatable etc. while also having a different app ID.
  - devsda 2y ago
    Having two separate apps has additional benefit of acting like insurance against any automated/manual playstore review surprises.
    - RicoElectrico 2y ago
      Quite the opposite I think, some braindead bot can count that as spoofing or something.
      - bayindirh 2y ago
        They are coming from the same developer with the same certificates, how come?
        2y ago
dugite-code 2y ago
With it becoming Thunderbird branded my biggest wish is proper subfolder support. Seeing folders as Archives.2024.invoices.paid rather than a nice collapsable list makes mail management a right pain. It's also one of the oldest request on the github https://github.com/thunderbird/thunderbird-android/issues/630 https://github.com/thunderbird/thunderbird-android/issues/63...
- philipwhiuk 2y ago
  And it's in the same state I said when I commented on it for the same reason as I commented. A scrolling List View is really easy to implement. A proper infinitely nested folder UI is harder and none of the 'off-the-shelf' things worked at the time. (There's a bunch of comments that are just wrong, the code does 'understand' the separators, it just doesn't do much with that knowledge). The UI last time I used it used a mixture of web-views and standard components. We were at the time handling the Material UI transition to make it look like a modern app. Until that was done there was very little incentive to invest a lot of time in a UI that would be scrapped when that happened. Other big projects (like the Android timers change which broke reliable email fetch or battery life) were also prioritised ahead of it (for reasonable reasons). Honestly with only cketti and another person working on it part-time, the project struggled to do more than (or even) keep pace with the Android ecosystem. Maybe now it can. But the release cadence and approach was painfully slow. I stopped my involvement with the project when I switched from Android to Apple - my motivation was always improving my own email experience.
  - dugite-code 2y ago
    Hey thanks for the work in the past, you did amazing work. No doubt imaps loosness with how it returns data made it an even more complex task. I hope joining Thunderbird is going to pay dividends for big task like this one.
antisol 2y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
jrm4 2y ago
I'll try to do it less snarky than others but; This is fine, but frankly we'd love to see resources toward returning Thunderbird to be the more open thing it once was. Losing the robust plugin system was incredibly frustrating; like, all I want is the ability to have custom colored accounts back.
- KetoManx64 2y ago
  Custom colored accounts exist in FairMail (Open source as well)
Kudos 2y ago
Is there any way to get push notifications instead of polling? My email provider is Fastmail, maybe there are some kind of IMAP extensions that can do this?
- mdaniel 2y ago
  Fastmail thinks JMAP is the future of mobile(?) email API access Also, I am just curious if you're unhappy with their android app? I find it very full featured
  - encom 2y ago
    Fastmail is a webapp, and it's very obvious. I use it out of laziness, because I don't use email on my phone that much. I wish they'd make a proper mobile client, but I don't think they care, since it's been like this forever.
    - mdaniel 2y ago
      OT1H, I don't have a horse in the fight about whether you're right or not, but I was curious because if it is a web app they did a damn stellar job But no, it's a formal android app and I offer two pieces of supporting evidence: the resource browser shows the apk very obviously has a bazillion android resource files <https://imgur.com/a/pUbQ8Bp https://imgur.com/a/pUbQ8Bp> and it supports native fingerprint auth
      - FredFS456 2y ago
        I dunno if it's native or not, but the Fastmail app doesn't work when you're offline.
      - kelnos 2y ago
        I'm not sure why it doesn't work offline, then. The UI refuses to load at all if I don't have an internet connection. Native fingerprint auth can be implemented on top of a webapp; that isn't evidence either way.
vzaliva 2y ago
I do not know how it is financed, but I would rather have them use these funds to fix desktop version first. Content advisory: longish rant ahead. I have 4 email accounts: 2 Gmail, 1 Outlook, and 1 ProtonMail. I also use Google Calendar and Outlook Calendar. The reason I switched to Thunderbird was to manage them all in one uniform UI instead of keeping 6 open tabs. I tried hard to love it, but after about 6 months, I am ready to give up. The main annoyance is that I cannot see sent and received messages in a single thread. I know this feature is coming soon, but I do not know how long to wait. The second problem is that Thunderbird’s search, frankly, sucks. For example, while focused on a folder, if I start a search, it doesn't automatically narrow it to that folder; it searches across all my mail. I've noticed that when I need to find something, I open the Gmail web interface. Finally, there are bugs. Most of them are relatively minor, but combined, they ruin my user experience. There are strange calendar event reminders that will not go away, bugs when event modifications do not sync to the server, and the most bizarre bug: when I reply to my own message, it sets the FROM field to one of the recipients, making it look like I’m faking someone’s email. Sometimes, when I reply to an HTML-heavy message, the editor in my reply starts in white font on a white background, so I cannot see what I’m typing until I change it. Etc. I do not want to belittle the hard work all the developers put into Thunderbird. It’s a very complex piece of open-source software that does many good things. It just seems to fall a little short. So, I am seriously contemplating giving up and going back to the web interfaces for my respective email accounts.
- JAM1971 2y ago
  1) You can see replies/sent messages in Conversation/Threaded view (I do this). Unfortunately I don't recall exactly how I set this up, but this might get you there: https://www.reddit.com/r/Thunderbird/comments/tvb02t/show_replies_of_inbox_messages_in_thread/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Thunderbird/comments/tvb02t/show_re... 2) Expression Search NG might solve your search issues: https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-us/thunderbird/addon/expression-search-ng/ https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-us/thunderbird/addon/expre...
  - vzaliva 2y ago
    On your #1 issue: it’s a well-known and acknowledged problem. Basically, the current Thunderbird doesn’t have unique message IDs across folders, which causes issues when displaying messages from different folders in threaded view. One of the common workarounds involves making copies of Sent messages in other folders like INBOX. There’s a major internal message storage rework project happening in Thunderbird, which should fix this once completed. You can try it in some beta builds, but of course, it’s still beta and isn’t compatible with some plugins yet. Most notably, the TBSync plugin, which provides Microsoft Outlook integration, doesn’t support it at this stage.
pluc 2y ago
Right when there are better alternatives (fastmail, proton, etc). Another bonus-worthy move by Mozilla's CEO!
- advisedwang 2y ago
  Thunderbird is an email client, not an email service. Fastmail and proton only allow you to connect to their service. Thunderbird can use any IMAP/POP + SMTP email service.
  - pluc 2y ago
    Yes, but they provide their own apps.
- callahad 2y ago
  Thunderbird is housed in MZLA Technologies, an independent subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation and completely separate from the Mozilla Corporation or its CEO's remit.
kelnos 2y ago
I use Fastmail, and have found their Android app to be functional, but lackluster (no offline access being one of my biggest gripes). I hadn't used Thunderbird on the desktop in a good 15-20 years, so I figured I'd give this a try. It is very snappy (unlike how I remember desktop Thunderbird all those years ago), and seems to work well so far, though it's a little bare-bones feature-wise. One thing that is unfortunate is it doesn't appear to be able to recognize Fastmail's "pinned" messages and map them to "starred" messages. That alone will keep Fastmail's own app on my phone. Fastmail also has different actions for marking as spam and reporting phishing; I'm not sure how effective the latter is, but of course Thunderbird doesn't support it, as presumably that's a Fastmail-proprietary thing. I'll probably keep it and see if it can serve as my daily driver, with the Fastmail app as a fallback for pinned messages for now.
- wheels 2y ago
  It's not surprising that this feels different than Thunderbird as it's a completely separate app with a separate background just being rebranded with Thunderbird identity. There's probably some effort to make them play nice together, but K-9's been around for ages (I think I've been using it for more than a decade).
  - kelnos 2y ago
    Sure, I'm aware. I tried K-9 many many years ago but didn't really like it. Seems like it's more my style now (or my style has changed).
    - dizhn 2y ago
      It had a visual overhaul a few years ago. Not something drastic but it was a very positive improvement.
      - pmontra 2y ago
        And very negative for the people that selected K9 precisely because of the peculiar UX. 5.600 has been the last good version for me. I still sideload it on every new Android device I buy.
pomian 2y ago
This is great. I suppose the improvements will arrive soon. I used to use Thunderbird on Android long ago. (K-9 has done it's part in filling the gap sincce then.) It has always been a neat system to use - Thunderbird on desktops, and on cell phones(used to be on iphones also, I think.) though not linked, the same freedom of self mail control. A very good way to archive all your mail, as you want, without externalities. IMAP and PoP.
johnea 2y ago
After decades of a love/hate relationship with thunderbird mail reader, I sure hope this isn't the beginning of the end of decent email on android 8-/ K-9 also has it's faults, but it's been a pretty good ophone mail reader. Thunderbird, under the ever declining mozilla foundation's wing, continues to make nonsensical changes while still failing to fetch mail into all IMAP folders (among a number of other fundamental functional failures).
zxspectrum1982 2y ago
Nice but there are a zillion mobile e-mail clients already. What I really wish is a good desktop e-mail client for Linux that I can use for enterprise use: - Thunderbird is heavy, slow and the UI feels dated - KMail was very advanced 15-20 years ago but it's lagged behind and even HTML e-mail is semibroken today - evolution... well, let's say it has not really evolved in the past 10 years, since Red Hat lost interest in the desktop - others (Geary, Trojita, etc) are toys and unfit for enterprise usage
beej71 2y ago
Moving an item to the trash in Android TB (IMAP) doesn't seem to actually move it on the server. Webmail still shows it in the inbox. I see it in the trash in Android, but it refuses to let me move it out of the trash there, saying, "Cannot copy or move a message that is not synchronized with the server". The synchronize button and restarting don't have an effect. Is this a bug or do I have some misunderstanding about IMAP and a misconfiguration? K-9 deletes as expected.
bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago
Am I crazy or is it a bad idea to download all your emails into your phone?
nsonha 2y ago
Other than nostalgia, what makes this email client so special?
kseistrup 2y ago
Does it do NNTP?
TwoNineFive 2y ago
It's sad what cketti did to K9 after 5.6. I don't have any hope for the future of K9/Android Thunderbird anymore.

Why didn't they just rename K-9 instead? I just gave it a try and it really is just K-9 with slight UI tweaks.

kevincox 2y ago
They did rename K-9. They just also have been making lots of improvements to K-9. They still have two different apps, Thunderbird Mobile and K-9, but the only difference is the branding. All of the UI tweaks other than the icons and colours are in both apps. The functionality is identical. So other than not deleting K-9 it is a rename (I guess it is a hard link, not a rename).
- anta40 2y ago
  >> making lots of improvements to K-9 Such as...?
prmoustache 2y ago
That is just one of the downsides of the "stores" and basic package managers which do not have dependencies management where you can't do a transitional package.
- tslocum 2y ago
  Why is a transitional package necessary? Surely all of this isn't just to change the package name, which 99% of users won't see or care about.
  - prmoustache 2y ago
    I believe it is. Current k9mail and thunderbird are the exact same codebase and exact same dev team.

I believe they will be deleting K-9 from play store after giving its users adequate warming and informing them assuaging them. It's just K-9 right now named Thunderbird. I hope they bring in some important Thunderbird desktop features to mobile as well. The release is underwhelming if not downright disappointing.

dugite-code 2y ago
They have stated in the past that K-9 will stick around with just the Icon, name and colour scheme differing.
forbiddenlake 2y ago
Why do you believe that?

NoboruWataya 2y ago

I've been happy with FairEmail but I think I will give this a try when it hits F-Droid. At this stage it's mainly curiosity, but if they get new features like sync with desktop down the line it will be great.

figmert 2y ago
I tried it not long ago. It's nowhere near as polished and good as FairEmail, unfortunately. I didn't last more than a week. There was a lot missing.
- aquariusDue 2y ago
  Yeah, FairEmail is great. Personally I can't sing its praises enough. I'm thinking of upgrading to Pro for the home screen widgets too. I also find it surprisingly user friendly, the UI is easy to navigate and the advanced stuff is pretty well communicated e.g. templates and mailbox rules.
metasaval 2y ago
I've kept TB Beta installed but still go back to FairEmail. But I'm not an email power user, I really only stick to it because the widgets are better. No dark mode for the K9/TB widget is a dealbreaker. And even then FairEmail goes beyond that in allowing transparent widgets. Will keep checking back in over time.
red_trumpet 2y ago
K-9 Mail is on F-Droid, if you want to give it a try.

gaiagraphia 2y ago

Is there a reason why Mozilla haven't used their position and funding to just hoover up all the most successful open source projects to create a more cohesive ecosystem? Surely any addons - like uBlock Origin - which have massive usage should just be baked in to the browser by this point? The likes of Nextcloud and Mattermost would also be great additions in trying to create a true rival to Microsoft and Google's offerings. Gives open source projects funding and development, Mozilla gets new avenues for subscription money to try and be more independent, and MS/Google's market shares can be chipped away at. Win win win. Potential anti-trust bait when Google start crying and withdrawing funding, too.

AlienRobot 2y ago
Why would Youtube, which makes money off ads, allow a web browser that blocks ads to access Youtube when they could just refuse to serve their user agent?
- worble 2y ago
  They currently allow Brave which does that. If a major website starting blocking user agents for any reason other than compatibility then all that would do is trigger (finally) the deprecation of user agents strings as browsers would all just pretend to be each other.
  - ssl-3 2y ago
    It would just be yet another zero-sum meta-war, with web browsers ultimately using randomized user agent strings just as mobiles randomize MAC addresses. But none of that means that the war somehow can't or won't occur.
  - AlienRobot 2y ago
    Brave and Vivaldi can probably get away with it because they're just a Chromium re-skin. Firefox uses Gecko instead of Webkit. They can't change their user agent string.
- BizarroLand 2y ago

nxtbl 2y ago

They are keeping both: "Quite a few people seem to love K-9 Mail and have asked us to keep the robot dog around. We believe it should be relatively little effort to build two apps from one code base. The apps would be virtually identical and only differ in app name, app icon, and the color scheme. So our current plan is to keep K-9 Mail around." https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/12/when-will-thunderbird-for-android-be-released/ https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/12/when-will-thunderbird-f...

nixosbestos 2y ago
Isn't that something a single App can do? I have some apps that allow you to change their icon, at least... I guess if you have a CI pipeline it's easy to copy/paste or add a Matrix job, but it seems like an odd choice.
- Timon3 2y ago
  Not if you want to keep previous app installations updatable etc. while also having a different app ID.
- devsda 2y ago
  Having two separate apps has additional benefit of acting like insurance against any automated/manual playstore review surprises.
  - RicoElectrico 2y ago
    Quite the opposite I think, some braindead bot can count that as spoofing or something.
    - bayindirh 2y ago
      They are coming from the same developer with the same certificates, how come?
      - 2y ago

dugite-code 2y ago

With it becoming Thunderbird branded my biggest wish is proper subfolder support. Seeing folders as Archives.2024.invoices.paid rather than a nice collapsable list makes mail management a right pain. It's also one of the oldest request on the github https://github.com/thunderbird/thunderbird-android/issues/630 https://github.com/thunderbird/thunderbird-android/issues/63...

philipwhiuk 2y ago
And it's in the same state I said when I commented on it for the same reason as I commented. A scrolling List View is really easy to implement. A proper infinitely nested folder UI is harder and none of the 'off-the-shelf' things worked at the time. (There's a bunch of comments that are just wrong, the code does 'understand' the separators, it just doesn't do much with that knowledge). The UI last time I used it used a mixture of web-views and standard components. We were at the time handling the Material UI transition to make it look like a modern app. Until that was done there was very little incentive to invest a lot of time in a UI that would be scrapped when that happened. Other big projects (like the Android timers change which broke reliable email fetch or battery life) were also prioritised ahead of it (for reasonable reasons). Honestly with only cketti and another person working on it part-time, the project struggled to do more than (or even) keep pace with the Android ecosystem. Maybe now it can. But the release cadence and approach was painfully slow. I stopped my involvement with the project when I switched from Android to Apple - my motivation was always improving my own email experience.
- dugite-code 2y ago
  Hey thanks for the work in the past, you did amazing work. No doubt imaps loosness with how it returns data made it an even more complex task. I hope joining Thunderbird is going to pay dividends for big task like this one.

antisol 2y ago

[flagged]

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

jrm4 2y ago

I'll try to do it less snarky than others but; This is fine, but frankly we'd love to see resources toward returning Thunderbird to be the more open thing it once was. Losing the robust plugin system was incredibly frustrating; like, all I want is the ability to have custom colored accounts back.

KetoManx64 2y ago
Custom colored accounts exist in FairMail (Open source as well)

Kudos 2y ago

Is there any way to get push notifications instead of polling? My email provider is Fastmail, maybe there are some kind of IMAP extensions that can do this?

mdaniel 2y ago
Fastmail thinks JMAP is the future of mobile(?) email API access Also, I am just curious if you're unhappy with their android app? I find it very full featured
- encom 2y ago
  Fastmail is a webapp, and it's very obvious. I use it out of laziness, because I don't use email on my phone that much. I wish they'd make a proper mobile client, but I don't think they care, since it's been like this forever.
  - mdaniel 2y ago
    OT1H, I don't have a horse in the fight about whether you're right or not, but I was curious because if it is a web app they did a damn stellar job But no, it's a formal android app and I offer two pieces of supporting evidence: the resource browser shows the apk very obviously has a bazillion android resource files <https://imgur.com/a/pUbQ8Bp https://imgur.com/a/pUbQ8Bp> and it supports native fingerprint auth
    - FredFS456 2y ago
      I dunno if it's native or not, but the Fastmail app doesn't work when you're offline.
    - kelnos 2y ago
      I'm not sure why it doesn't work offline, then. The UI refuses to load at all if I don't have an internet connection. Native fingerprint auth can be implemented on top of a webapp; that isn't evidence either way.

vzaliva 2y ago

I do not know how it is financed, but I would rather have them use these funds to fix desktop version first. Content advisory: longish rant ahead. I have 4 email accounts: 2 Gmail, 1 Outlook, and 1 ProtonMail. I also use Google Calendar and Outlook Calendar. The reason I switched to Thunderbird was to manage them all in one uniform UI instead of keeping 6 open tabs. I tried hard to love it, but after about 6 months, I am ready to give up. The main annoyance is that I cannot see sent and received messages in a single thread. I know this feature is coming soon, but I do not know how long to wait. The second problem is that Thunderbird’s search, frankly, sucks. For example, while focused on a folder, if I start a search, it doesn't automatically narrow it to that folder; it searches across all my mail. I've noticed that when I need to find something, I open the Gmail web interface. Finally, there are bugs. Most of them are relatively minor, but combined, they ruin my user experience. There are strange calendar event reminders that will not go away, bugs when event modifications do not sync to the server, and the most bizarre bug: when I reply to my own message, it sets the FROM field to one of the recipients, making it look like I’m faking someone’s email. Sometimes, when I reply to an HTML-heavy message, the editor in my reply starts in white font on a white background, so I cannot see what I’m typing until I change it. Etc. I do not want to belittle the hard work all the developers put into Thunderbird. It’s a very complex piece of open-source software that does many good things. It just seems to fall a little short. So, I am seriously contemplating giving up and going back to the web interfaces for my respective email accounts.

JAM1971 2y ago
1) You can see replies/sent messages in Conversation/Threaded view (I do this). Unfortunately I don't recall exactly how I set this up, but this might get you there: https://www.reddit.com/r/Thunderbird/comments/tvb02t/show_replies_of_inbox_messages_in_thread/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Thunderbird/comments/tvb02t/show_re... 2) Expression Search NG might solve your search issues: https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-us/thunderbird/addon/expression-search-ng/ https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-us/thunderbird/addon/expre...
- vzaliva 2y ago
  On your #1 issue: it’s a well-known and acknowledged problem. Basically, the current Thunderbird doesn’t have unique message IDs across folders, which causes issues when displaying messages from different folders in threaded view. One of the common workarounds involves making copies of Sent messages in other folders like INBOX. There’s a major internal message storage rework project happening in Thunderbird, which should fix this once completed. You can try it in some beta builds, but of course, it’s still beta and isn’t compatible with some plugins yet. Most notably, the TBSync plugin, which provides Microsoft Outlook integration, doesn’t support it at this stage.

pluc 2y ago

Right when there are better alternatives (fastmail, proton, etc). Another bonus-worthy move by Mozilla's CEO!

advisedwang 2y ago
Thunderbird is an email client, not an email service. Fastmail and proton only allow you to connect to their service. Thunderbird can use any IMAP/POP + SMTP email service.
- pluc 2y ago
  Yes, but they provide their own apps.
callahad 2y ago
Thunderbird is housed in MZLA Technologies, an independent subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation and completely separate from the Mozilla Corporation or its CEO's remit.

kelnos 2y ago

I use Fastmail, and have found their Android app to be functional, but lackluster (no offline access being one of my biggest gripes). I hadn't used Thunderbird on the desktop in a good 15-20 years, so I figured I'd give this a try. It is very snappy (unlike how I remember desktop Thunderbird all those years ago), and seems to work well so far, though it's a little bare-bones feature-wise. One thing that is unfortunate is it doesn't appear to be able to recognize Fastmail's "pinned" messages and map them to "starred" messages. That alone will keep Fastmail's own app on my phone. Fastmail also has different actions for marking as spam and reporting phishing; I'm not sure how effective the latter is, but of course Thunderbird doesn't support it, as presumably that's a Fastmail-proprietary thing. I'll probably keep it and see if it can serve as my daily driver, with the Fastmail app as a fallback for pinned messages for now.

wheels 2y ago
It's not surprising that this feels different than Thunderbird as it's a completely separate app with a separate background just being rebranded with Thunderbird identity. There's probably some effort to make them play nice together, but K-9's been around for ages (I think I've been using it for more than a decade).
- kelnos 2y ago
  Sure, I'm aware. I tried K-9 many many years ago but didn't really like it. Seems like it's more my style now (or my style has changed).
  - dizhn 2y ago
    It had a visual overhaul a few years ago. Not something drastic but it was a very positive improvement.
    - pmontra 2y ago
      And very negative for the people that selected K9 precisely because of the peculiar UX. 5.600 has been the last good version for me. I still sideload it on every new Android device I buy.

pomian 2y ago

This is great. I suppose the improvements will arrive soon. I used to use Thunderbird on Android long ago. (K-9 has done it's part in filling the gap sincce then.) It has always been a neat system to use - Thunderbird on desktops, and on cell phones(used to be on iphones also, I think.) though not linked, the same freedom of self mail control. A very good way to archive all your mail, as you want, without externalities. IMAP and PoP.

johnea 2y ago

After decades of a love/hate relationship with thunderbird mail reader, I sure hope this isn't the beginning of the end of decent email on android 8-/ K-9 also has it's faults, but it's been a pretty good ophone mail reader. Thunderbird, under the ever declining mozilla foundation's wing, continues to make nonsensical changes while still failing to fetch mail into all IMAP folders (among a number of other fundamental functional failures).

zxspectrum1982 2y ago

Nice but there are a zillion mobile e-mail clients already. What I really wish is a good desktop e-mail client for Linux that I can use for enterprise use: - Thunderbird is heavy, slow and the UI feels dated - KMail was very advanced 15-20 years ago but it's lagged behind and even HTML e-mail is semibroken today - evolution... well, let's say it has not really evolved in the past 10 years, since Red Hat lost interest in the desktop - others (Geary, Trojita, etc) are toys and unfit for enterprise usage

beej71 2y ago

Moving an item to the trash in Android TB (IMAP) doesn't seem to actually move it on the server. Webmail still shows it in the inbox. I see it in the trash in Android, but it refuses to let me move it out of the trash there, saying, "Cannot copy or move a message that is not synchronized with the server". The synchronize button and restarting don't have an effect. Is this a bug or do I have some misunderstanding about IMAP and a misconfiguration? K-9 deletes as expected.

bdjsiqoocwk 2y ago

Am I crazy or is it a bad idea to download all your emails into your phone?

nsonha 2y ago

Other than nostalgia, what makes this email client so special?

kseistrup 2y ago

Does it do NNTP?

TwoNineFive 2y ago

It's sad what cketti did to K9 after 5.6. I don't have any hope for the future of K9/Android Thunderbird anymore.