Betterbird. Simply better.
Betterbird is a fine-tuned version of Mozilla Thunderbird, Thunderbird on steroids, if you will.
Betterbird is better than Thunderbird in three ways: It contains new features exclusive to Betterbird, it contains bug fixes exclusive to Betterbird and it contains fixes that Thunderbird may ship at a later stage. Please refer to this feature table for examples. This should give you an impression of where the project is headed.
Easy adoption: You can install Betterbird at the same time as Thunderbird and run them on the same profile. That means that you can try out Betterbird with zero hassle, and go back to Thunderbird if you don't like it - which is unlikely. Please read the fine print on our support page.
More information on why we're doing the project can be found at the FAQ. Or just see our illustrator's impression:
Which party would you join?
Betterbird 115.16.1 released on 10th October 2024
Today we are shipping Betterbird version 115.16.1-bb34. Please refer to the release notes for details. German, Dutch, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Russian, Ukranian, Czech, Albanian, Turkish, Japanese and Chinese localisations available, other languages on request. A portable version for Windows is also available. There's also a Mac build for Intel and Silicon Macs in English only, which can be localised using Betterbird language packs.
Betterbird 115 "Superstar"
Betterbird 115 has been around since June 2023 in its beta version and since July 2023 in its release version.
Unlike Thunderbird, we're not calling it "Supernova" because that sounds too much like destruction, see Wikipedia: "... a powerful and luminous explosion of a star turning the original star into a neutron star or black hole, or completely destroying it".
One very disconcerting trend is becoming clear: More and more functionality that existed for decades is being removed from Thunderbird. Of course we will endeavour to restore it in Betterbird:
- Total and unread/selected count removed from status bar. Yes, it's definitely gone! - Restored in Betterbird
- Can't select multiple folders any more for bulk processing. Yes, it's gone in 115 but coming back in 128
- No more connecting lines in threaded view: Yes, they are gone - Restored in Betterbird
- The new card view, a poor implementation of a true multi-line view,
can't be threaded. Not so useful.
Betterbird still has its "traditional" multi-line view.
Betterbird 128.0esr "preview" released on 6th July 2024
After a beta program for Betterbird 128 of three weeks (22nd June to 6th July 2024), we're shipping Betterbird 128.0esr-bb4 today. We're shipping this only in English and for Windows.
Betterbird 128.3.1esr-bb12 "preview" released on 11th October 2024
We are constantly updating the Betterbird 128 series with new release in English and for Windows, Linux and Mac. Please refer to the release notes for details.
Note that Thunderbird 128 and hence Betterbird 128 is shipping with a broken backend, causing IMAP folder corruption under some circumstances. Currently, we do not recommend version 128 for productive use.
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History: In December 2023 the Thunderbird team greatly changed the internals of mbox file handling, introducing a number of regressions. Soon after, the first bug was filed, reporting IMAP folder corruption. Currently, this bug is tracking the issue.
Symptoms: IMAP folder corruption is easy to notice. The user clicks on a message, and the message isn't correctly display. Usually some raw message content is displayed, often a MIME boundary starting with --. Some users report that a different mail from the one that was clicked on in the message list is displayed. Note that since the Thunderbird folks forced version 128 onto unsuspecting users via an unnecessary update, they are getting a high volume of reports that people's e-mail can't be displayed any more.
Remedy: Repairing the affected IMAP folder (Right-click, Properties, Repair Folder) usually fixes the issue. That's fine for users with little data, it causes problems for users with large folders (more than 1 GB) since the repair downloads all messages again. Some Thunderbird users report that they need to repair they IMAP mailboxes multiple times per week.
Outlook: We were estimating that the problem would be fixed in version 128.3.0 due in October 2024,
but the Thunderbird team have done precious little to address the issue. Unfortunately 128.3.0 is still defective.
As a recap, Thunderbird 102 initially shipped with a broken backend, including causing data loss;
Thunderbird 115 "Supernova-kaboom" shipped with a broken frontend; now in Thunderbird 128 we're back to a broken backend.
Breaking news: Mozilla will support the 115 series until 115.21 in March 2025.
Maybe Thunderbird 128 will be stable by then. We will ship further versions in the 115 series.
Get in touch: If the IMAP folder corruption is affecting you, please get in touch with our support team, and we will work through the issue with you.
Betterbird 102 series
As of 26th September 2023, the 102 series of Betterbird has reached "end of life" status and will no longer receive updates. Please switch to Betterbird 115.
Betterbird Survey 2023
At the beginning of 2023 we conducted a survey among our supporters and users asking two questions: "What do you like?" and "What do you like to see improved?".
Top answers to the first question were:
- Less bugs than Thunderbird (76%)
- Better support (57%)
- More independence from Mozilla (30%)
- Top features: Multi-line view (32%), complex search terms (19%), Windows System Tray ("Systray") (17%), search in encrypted messages (8%).
Features people like to see in the future:
Account Colours (30%)System Tray ("Systray") also for Linux (26%)Different program icons (26%)Regular expressions in search terms/filters (20%)- Calendar subtasks (18%)
- Compose in tab (17%)
Insert menu for plaintext composition (16%)Search in S/MIME encrypted messages (11%)
The good news is that System Tray support for Linux
and the Insert menu were already included in release 102.7.0.
Regular expressions in search terms/filters followed in release 102.7.1.
As of version 102.11.0, program icons can be customised on both Windows and Linux.
The first part of
Account Colours
will ship in BB 115.5.2-bb20 as a 2023 Christmas present.
Please get in touch via this
GitHub issue
if you can contribute to the implementation of calendar subtasks.
Software Quality
Based on the current situation in version 102, a look at quality assurance, or lack thereof, is appropriate. Thunderbird has never had an organised quality assurance team, they let the product ripen at the customer site, at worst causing data loss like for version 102. The 102 release with mbox and MSF corruption causing data loss and deleted MSF files was nothing short of disastrous.
More and more developers are hired who contribute more and more changes causing an ever growing number of regressions (Wikipedia: A software regression is a type of software bug where a feature that has worked before stops working). The team tracks bugs found in early deployment of a release, and the trend is astounding, although version 128 offers a ray of hope: Version 68: 43, Version 78: 184, Version 91: 270, Version 102: 395 (66 still unresolved), Version 115: No record, Version 128: 235 (as of 6 Sept. 2024).
Thunderbird management has discussed establishing a QA team since 2020, but in the end, funds were spent
on hiring more developers. In this context,
this article
seems to mark the beginning of a new era. But will Thunderbird finally catch up with quality and usability issues?
Our project leader wrote an
answer.
Update July 2023: The employee working on the QA team hasn't been seen since May 2023, Bugzilla gives the impression
that new bugs for version 115 aren't triaged and are also not bundled any more.
However, new bugs announced on the Beta Mailing List easily add up to well over 500.
Update April/June 2024: Thunderbird finally hired two QA staff and a release manager, the former not listed on their About Us page yet. It remains to be seen how fast the QA staff pick up knowledge of the product. The release manager, whose first big task were the 128 release notes, didn't fare so well, he forgot mentioning the following hotly requested features: Folder multi-select works again, Thunderbird now partly implemented account colours (Betterbird's version is far better), (check for bugs 1817605 and 1482172 in the raw data).
Other news
Want to see Betterbird running on a mobile ARM64 device (Samsung Galaxy Tab S7), click here. Note: That's the work of a volunteer, not strictly related to the Betterbird project.
For the much requested multi-line view, see here for details.
Colours
The red-orange colour scheme is part of the registered trademark. Red-orange together with a Phoenix-like bird on one hand signify a more aggressive policy and on the other hand a resurrection from the ashes unleashing the potential of the product while not being bogged down by annoying bugs.
We've had many requests to change the icons to make them better distinguishable from Firefox to avoid misclicks. As the colour scheme is part of the trademark, we will not change the default icons shipped with the product or the icons used in the product. However, Windows and Linux users can change program and system tray icons as described here.
Due to the current situation in Europe, we were featuring the Betterbird logo at this website in Ukrainian colours from March to July 2022. The logo in Ukrainian colours is still available for download.
Betterbird elsewhere on the web
| Source code, Downloads | |
| Our GitHub repository | github.com/Betterbird/ | Arch Linux packages (English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese) |
aur.archlinux.org |
| FlatPak | flathub.org/.../Betterbird github.com/flathub/eu.betterbird.Betterbird |
| Winget | winstall.app/apps/Betterbird.Betterbird | Chocolatey | community.chocolatey.org/packages/betterbird | Windows 11 Downloads | Betterbird on Windows 11 Downloads |
| Softpedia | www.softpedia.com/.../Betterbird.shtml |
| Forums ... | |
| Reddit (handle with care) | www.reddit.com/r/Betterbird/ |
| Articles, opinions ... | |
| Interview with the project leader (in German) | linuxnews.de |
| Article "The email client Thunderbird could have been" | betanews.com - downloadcrew.com |
| Daves Computer Tips | Thunderbird vs. Betterbird |
| YouTube Videos about Betterbird | June 2022, March 2023, August 2023, and more |
| Search on Google, more stuff appearing all the time: | www.google.com/search?q=betterbird |