Mozilla Thunderbird: email client coming soon for Android and iOS

The popular open-source e-mail client Thunderbird from Mozilla or the spin-off subsidiary MZLA Technologies Corporation will soon be available as a mobile app for smartphones and tablets. The app will premiere on Android, before a version for iOS will appear later.

User interface and experience are the focus

As Ryan Lee, Product and Business Development Manager for Mozilla Thunderbird at the fledgling MZLA Technologies Corporation, confirmed via Twitter, a mobile app for the email client is to be developed appear soon. The MZLA Technologies Corporation was founded a little over two years ago solely for the further development of Thunderbird.

Mobile app is coming soon.

Ryan Lee, Product and Business Development Manager

Before Thunderbird via the Google Play Store and additionally as a free Android package (.APK) should be offered, but the UI/UX design of the client will be revised. Lee qualified that this “maybe take a while” will, which is why interested users the “soon‘ in the announcement should not be taken too precisely or should not be too narrow.

But this is my #2 priority, my #1 is fixing Thunderbird’s UI/UX.

Ryan Lee, Product and Business Development Manager

The work on the user interface (UI) and the associated user experience (UX) are a basic requirement for the transfer of the client from the Linux and Windows desktop to mobile devices with Android, iOS and iPadOS.

Thunderbird 102 as a highlight in 2022

Even before the mobile app, Thunderbird 102 should be the highlight in 2022 and offer the following innovations with its release.

Integration of the Matrix protocol

In addition to the integration of the matrix protocol, which is considered to be particularly secure and which for this reason is also used in schools and authorities in Schleswig-Holstein and for the Bundeswehr messenger “BwMessenger”, other modules are to be completely overhauled.

What’s Coming in Thunderbird 102 (2022) 🧵:

• Space’s toolbar
• New Address Book
• Link Preview Cards
• Account Setup Hub
• Matrix Support (Preliminary)
• Message header redesign
• Import/Export

Mozilla

above about:config → chat.prpls.prpl-matrix.disable the Matrix protocol can already be activated in a beta version from Thunderbird 91 by setting the value to false is set.

Account Setup Hub, Spaces and Link Preview Cards

The new “Spaces” toolbar is intended to make it easier to organize and switch between workspaces and modules such as the new address book, inbox and outbox, chat, calendar and tasks, and make them even faster for the user to access.

In addition to a revised link preview for emails, the so-called “Link Preview Card”, which can convert a link within an email into a rich link preview, in which the content of the website is displayed on a card Thunderbird 102 about a new “Account Setup Hub” that should create new user accounts much easier and faster.

In addition, there is a native implementation of the import and export function of user accounts, which no longer has to be implemented using an add-on, as well as a redesign of the email header.

Download on ComputerBase

As usual, the current stable version 91.8.1 and the Thunderbird 100 Beta can be downloaded directly below this message from the ComputerBase download area. Both the stable release and the pre-release are available for all relevant platforms.