There was a time not so many years ago when getting access to email meant having an ISP. In today’s article, we’ll examine why this happened to Thunderbird and explore where email seems to be headed as a whole. What was once loved by legions of users has now been placed onto the market for others to adopt it. Most recently, the news that Mozilla is finally letting Thunderbird go took a lot of folks by complete surprise. Not because of anything negative, rather because Mozilla is trying to refocus their efforts with Firefox. Unfortunately over the past few years Thunderbird’s importance with Mozilla has faltered. The point is: Thunderbird is near and dear to my heart. I started using it on Windows and then installed it onto my Linux PCs later on. However, Thunderbird started to decline after Mozilla moved some of its developers to other projects in 2012, and then cut off most funding in 2015 - leaving Thunderbird’s future entirely up to independent donations.I have used Thunderbird off and on since about 2003. Mozilla originally created Thunderbird alongside the Firefox web browser, with both applications serving as a replacement for the older Mozilla Suite. There’s even an Android app in development. Color-coding for emails is expected to arrive in Thunderbird v114, a universal font size setting is in the works, and some icons are being updated. Thunderbird’s developers have also been answering questions and feature requests, though many of the planned improvements won’t show up for many months. Spaces toolbar (far left side) Thunderbird The account setup process and import/export wizard are being revamped, too, and there’s early support for Matrix messaging directly in Thunderbird.

Thunderbird is also working on a new (optional) ‘Spaces Toolbar’, which acts like a tab bar for all of the app’s features, similar to Outlook on the web. The address book will have a refreshed design, with related information divided into cards for easier reading. The Thunderbird team revealed its plans for version 102 in a blog post earlier this month, with the update expected to arrive by the end of June 2022.

Thunderbird email software