Thunderbird for Android Now Available

(blog.thunderbird.net)

135 points | by HieronymusBosch 5 hours ago ago

57 comments

  • nxtbl 4 hours 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-f...

    • nixosbestos 3 hours 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 3 hours ago

        Not if you want to keep previous app installations updatable etc. while also having a different app ID.

      • devsda 2 hours ago

        Having two separate apps has additional benefit of acting like insurance against any automated/manual playstore review surprises.

        • RicoElectrico 32 minutes ago

          Quite the opposite I think, some braindead bot can count that as spoofing or something.

    • 9cb14c1ec0 3 hours ago

      Incredibly easy if you figure out how to use Android build variants.

      I'm using and loving Thunderbird for Android.

  • dugite-code 4 hours 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/63...

  • NoboruWataya 4 hours 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.

    • metasaval 20 minutes 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 14 minutes ago

      K-9 Mail is on F-Droid, if you want to give it a try.

    • figmert 3 hours 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 3 hours 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.

  • Kudos 3 hours 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?

    • kayson 2 hours ago

      Yes! They just moved the settings around compared to K-9. You have to open the folders side bar, hit Manage Folders, then tap your folder and turn on "Enable Push" (and probably Sync and Notifications too). Annoying that you have to do this manually for every folder but it does work great!

    • cocok 2 hours ago

      > Is there any way to get push notifications instead of polling?

      Push support has been there for a long time now. You can enable it on a per-folder basis, check in Manage folders.

      • carstenhag an hour ago

        How would a true push (and not poll) method work, if all you have is the local thunderbird client? If I had to guess, the question from the other person is not related to mail poll/push stuff

        Usually you rely on a server telling the mobile app that there's something new to poll (or the message is directly sent and displayed).

        • dvdkon an hour ago

          A TCP connection to the IMAP server is kept open, with the server sending a packet whenever anything interesting happens (see IMAP IDLE), waking up the client app. This is how all push notifications work nowadays, IIRC, since you can't send information directly to clients without a persistent connection, due to NAT.

    • mdaniel 3 hours 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 2 hours 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 2 hours 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> and it supports native fingerprint auth

          • marcellus23 5 minutes ago

            It's not a native app. The main interface where you view your mailboxes, compose new emails, edit settings etc is a web view. The interface doesn't even load if you're offline, let alone your emails. Certainly some parts of the UI are native, but that's true of any web app.

          • kelnos an hour 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.

            • altairprime an hour ago

              Native app doesn’t guarantee “caches data for offline access”.

              • kelnos 4 minutes ago

                True. I seem to remember that the UI itself did not load when there's no internet connection, but I just tried it, and it does now. So maybe things have changed, or I misremembered.

                Either way, no offline access in an email app... pretty bad.

          • FredFS456 an hour ago

            I dunno if it's native or not, but the Fastmail app doesn't work when you're offline.

  • vzaliva 2 hours 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 2 hours 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_re...

      2) Expression Search NG might solve your search issues: https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-us/thunderbird/addon/expre...

      • vzaliva an hour 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.

    • aidenn0 an hour ago

      Gnome evolution works great; I've used it with everything you are talking about except ProtonMail.

      It defaults to the bizarre Gnome look (no native controls, toolbar buttons haphazardly strewn through the title bar), but you can change it in the preferences if you hate that as much as I do.

  • rany_ 5 hours 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 4 hours 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).

    • prmoustache 4 hours 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 3 hours 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.

  • gaiagraphia 4 hours 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.

    • openrisk 14 minutes ago

      Not sure "acquisition" is the right framing in the open source space but one could certainly think of more partnerships, coordination and/or sharing of various components among the various big players and ecosystems.

      FOSS on mobile is a basket case anyway (the dark side is too strong here) but the decades-long linux desktop story is not too hopeful either.

      Things like deep interoperability, look-and-feel, UI conventions etc could go a long way towards making all those important applications feel like a coherent thing rather than a random patchwork stitched together with tape.

    • NoboruWataya 3 hours ago

      I'm not sure I want that kind of "conglomeration" in the FOSS space. Sure, there can be benefits to having a behemoth with a lot of resources behind it to support FOSS projects. But it also brings with it various problems of incentives and resource allocation. Managing multiple different software projects within one organisation is something a lot of well-run, for-profit companies struggle to do effectively, I don't think Mozilla would be much better at it.

      Also, I personally don't have any issue with Mozilla but a lot of people seem to hate them. I can only imagine all the internet drama that would ensue if they started acquiring projects like LibreOffice and Nextcloud.

    • dboreham 2 hours ago

      > uBlock Origin - which have massive usage

      I'm guessing there are legal risk issues with this. While ad blocking flies under the radar as a mom/pop operation with guerilla marketing the offended parties turn a blind eye. Make it a feature of a "corporate" product, and they'll sue.

      • Zak an hour ago

        Brave, Opera, and Vivaldi are all corporate, for-profit browsers with adblockers built in.

    • Macha 44 minutes ago

      It hasn't exactly helped Eclipse and Apache stay independent, it's basically just some shared project infrastructure at a time when that's less relevant than it used to be.

    • extraduder_ire 19 minutes ago

      > Surely any addons - like uBlock Origin - which have massive usage should just be baked in to the browser by this point?

      Merely listing ublock origin as a "recommended extension" led to them being fined in China about two years ago. You can't even install it in mainland China right now.

    • klaussilveira 40 minutes ago

      Remember Zimbra?

    • timbit42 3 hours ago

      I'd like to see FF and TB combined with LibreOffice and maybe add some other apps like Scribus. I don't know whether their licensing permits this.

    • slightwinder 3 hours 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?

      How does this support their mission or make them money? They are rich, but also wasteful with their spendings. So anything has to show value for their Mission. And they are having enough projects of their own, just none which are really working well.

      > Surely any addons - like uBlock Origin - which have massive usage should just be baked in to the browser by this point?

      uBlock works fine on its own. It's probably better for them to be independent.

      > The likes of Nextcloud and Mattermost would also be great additions

      Nextcloud and Mattermost have both their own company. Do expect Mozilla to buy them out? Or should they just offer a hosted version with their own branding? What would be the value here?

      > create a true rival to Microsoft and Google's offerings.

      Mozilla has no real income outside of Google paying for a position in their Browser. And the money they have is far too low to compete with those behemoths in that space.

    • AlienRobot 4 hours 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 3 hours 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 2 hours 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.

      • terminalbraid 2 hours ago

        User agents are trivially fungible thing in this. That's the nature of the internet and how connections are established. Personal hardware constructs whatever packet that is going out and there's nothing special if that packet comes from a sanctioned or unsanctioned client. There's no way for a provider to distinguish the difference between what created an acceptable packet.

        It's difficult for me to envision how that's rigorously enforceable to prevent something outside of the app (like a browser) to access something ultimately consumed by an API without resorting to (expensive and crackable) digital rights management at the hardware level. You can run down whatever train of thought you want, but ultimately since the client is running on machines controlled by the consumer, it can be cracked, reverse engineered, decapped, or whatever. This has been the end state for every attempt the industry has made to control user behavior. DVD CSS, Bluray, Sony's CD rootkit nonsense, every game console, satellite TV cards, analog cable TV, on and on, all broken.

        I'm confident google/youtube wishes there weren't applications like FreeTube and yt-dlp. The fact of the matter is it's practically impossible to exclude them but still keep their own ecosystem functioning at an acceptable cost and with consumer buy in.

      • BizarroLand 3 hours ago

        Because they don't want to get sued for monopolistic practices, I guess. Since the Goo owns Chrome and Youtube, Youtube blocking non-chrome user agents would be actionable.

        Even if they whitelisted Safari, that would still be actionable.

        • carstenhag an hour ago

          It's not just YouTube blocking something. It's Google not paying Mozilla millions for keeping Google as default search engine

  • crossroadsguy 4 hours 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 4 hours ago

      They have stated in the past that K-9 will stick around with just the Icon, name and colour scheme differing.

    • forbiddenlake an hour ago

      Why do you believe that?

  • jrm4 3 hours 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 12 minutes ago

      Custom colored accounts exist in FairMail (Open source as well)

  • pluc an hour ago

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

    • advisedwang an hour 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.

    • callahad an hour 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.