Mozilla Thunderbird facts for kids
Logo used since 2023
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Mozilla Thunderbird 115 showing the mail inbox
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| Initial release | July 28, 2003 |
| Stable release |
131.0
 / 1 October 2024 |
| Preview release |
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| Written in | C, C++, JavaScript, CSS, Rust, XUL, XBL |
| Operating system | Windows 10 or later; macOS 10.15 or later; FreeBSD; Linux |
| Size | 50 MB |
| Available in | 65 languages |
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List of languages
Albanian, Arabic, Armenian, Asturian, Basque, Belarusian, Breton, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English (British), English (US), Estonian, Finnish, French, Frisian, Gaelic (Scotland), Galician, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Kabyle, Korean, Lithuanian, Lower Sorbian, Norwegian (Bokmål), Norwegian (Nynorsk), Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Romansh, Russian, Serbian, Sinhala, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish (Argentina), Spanish (Spain), Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Upper Sorbian, Vietnamese, Welsh.
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| Type | Email client, personal information manager, instant messaging client, news client, feed reader |
| License | MPL-2.0 |
Mozilla Thunderbird is a free computer program that helps you manage your emails. It's also an "open-source" program, which means its code is available for anyone to see and improve.
Thunderbird is more than just an email program. It can also help you organize your life with a calendar and a contact book. You can use it to read news updates (called RSS feeds), chat with friends, and even read newsgroups.
This program is run by MZLA Technologies Corporation, which is part of the Mozilla Foundation. Thunderbird is a project built by a community of people, and it's guided by a special group called the Thunderbird Council.
You can use Thunderbird on many different types of computers, including Windows, macOS, FreeBSD, and Linux. It was designed to work similarly to Mozilla's Firefox web browser.
Contents
What is Mozilla Thunderbird?
Thunderbird is a program that lets you handle emails, read newsgroups, follow news feeds, and send instant messages. It also has features to help you manage your personal information, like a calendar. These features have been built into the program since version 78.0.
You can add even more cool features to Thunderbird using "extensions" or "add-ons." These are like small programs you can install to make Thunderbird do more things. You can find them on the add-ons website.
Thunderbird also lets you change its look and feel with different "themes." These themes change the colors and styles of the program. You can download them from the Mozilla Add-ons website too.
People from all over the world have helped translate Thunderbird into more than 65 languages. This makes it easy for many different people to use it.
Email Features in Thunderbird
How Thunderbird Manages Messages
Thunderbird can handle many different email accounts, newsgroup accounts, and news feed accounts all in one place. It also lets you have different "identities" within your accounts.
Finding your messages is easy with features like quick search and special "virtual folders" that save your searches. It also has advanced tools to filter messages and group them together.
Stopping Unwanted Emails
Thunderbird has a smart filter that helps stop spam (unwanted junk mail). It learns what is spam and what isn't. It also has a "whitelist" based on your address book, so emails from people you know always get through.
Standard Ways of Handling Email
Thunderbird works with common standards for email, which helps it connect with many different email services:
- POP: This is a basic way to get your emails from a server.
- IMAP: Thunderbird uses many features of IMAP, which is a more advanced way to manage emails on a server.
- LDAP: This helps Thunderbird automatically complete email addresses when you're typing.
- S/MIME: This is built-in support for sending secure emails. It uses special keys to encrypt (scramble) your messages and make sure they are from you.
- OpenPGP: Since version 78.2.1, Thunderbird also has built-in support for OpenPGP, another way to encrypt and sign your emails.
How Thunderbird Connects Securely
Many email providers now use a secure way to connect called OAuth. This is a modern way to log in that is safer than older methods. Thunderbird fully supports OAuth, so you can connect to services like Gmail and Outlook securely.
Types of Files Thunderbird Uses
Thunderbird can work with different ways of storing emails:
- mbox: This is a common way to store many emails in one file.
- maildir: This method stores each email in its own file.
Thunderbird also uses special internal databases to store its information.
Sending Large Files
Since version 38, Thunderbird makes it easy to send large files. Instead of attaching them directly to your email, it can automatically create a link to the file. This is helpful when files are too big to send as regular attachments.
Writing Emails with Styles
Thunderbird has a "what you see is what you get" (WYSIWYG) editor. This means you can see how your email will look as you type it, using different fonts, colors, and styles. You can also add special formatting like subscript, strikethrough, and even edit the HTML code of your message.
Keeping Your Emails Safe
Thunderbird has important security features to protect your emails:
- TLS/SSL: This creates a secure connection when you send and receive emails, like a secret tunnel.
- Digital signing and encryption: Thunderbird can sign your messages to prove they are from you and encrypt them so only the right person can read them. It uses OpenPGP or S/MIME for this.
- Smartcards: You can even use smartcards for extra security with special add-ons.
Thunderbird also lets you choose to block remote images in messages. This helps prevent tracking and other security risks. You can also disable JavaScript for more safety.
The French military uses Thunderbird and helps improve its security features. They say it meets the high security needs for NATO's secure messaging system.
Other Useful Features
While Thunderbird is mostly known for email, it can do more!
News and Blog Feeds
Thunderbird can act as a "news aggregator." This means it collects news and blog updates for you. It supports popular formats like RSS and Atom.
Chatting with Friends
The program also has a chat client for instant messaging. It supports different chat systems like IRC, XMPP, and Matrix.
Reading Newsgroups
Thunderbird can also be used to read "newsgroups," which are like online discussion forums. It uses the NNTP protocol for this.
Viewing PDF Files
Since version 91, Thunderbird has a built-in PDF reader. This means you can open and view PDF attachments directly within the program without needing another PDF viewer.
Where Thunderbird Works
Thunderbird works on many different computer systems. You can download it for:
Some other groups have also made versions for:
Older versions were even available for OS/2 computers. Since the program's code is free, people can adapt it to work on many other systems.
Thunderbird on Phones
In June 2022, the Thunderbird team announced they would work with an Android email app called K-9 Mail. The goal is to turn K-9 Mail into a mobile version of Thunderbird for Android phones. This new mobile app will eventually have the Thunderbird name and look.
There are also plans to create a Thunderbird version for iOS (Apple iPhones and iPads). The first beta version for Android was released on September 30, 2024, with a full release expected in October 2024.
History and Development of Thunderbird
Early Years (2003-2010)
Thunderbird was first called Minotaur. It started around the same time as Phoenix (which later became Mozilla Firefox). At first, it didn't get much attention. But when Firefox became popular, people wanted a mail program to go with it. So, work on Minotaur started again, and it was renamed Thunderbird.
On December 7, 2004, version 1.0 of Thunderbird was released. It was very popular, with over 500,000 downloads in just three days!
Later, the Mozilla team decided to make their main software suite into separate programs, like Firefox and Thunderbird. This allowed users to choose which programs they wanted.
In 2004, "Project Lightning" was announced. This project aimed to add a calendar to Thunderbird, letting users manage their schedules and tasks right in the program.
In 2007, the Mozilla Foundation said that Thunderbird would be developed by its own independent group. This was because the Mozilla Corporation was focusing mainly on Firefox.
In 2008, a new group called Mozilla Messaging was formed to develop email and communication software, with a focus on Thunderbird 3.
Changes and Growth (2011-2016)
In 2011, Thunderbird started releasing new versions much faster, just like Firefox. Version 4.0 was skipped to match Firefox's version 5.0.
However, in 2012, Mozilla announced they would reduce their focus on developing new features for Thunderbird. Instead, they would offer "Extended Support Releases" (ESR) with security updates, and the community would take over developing new features.
In 2014, volunteers working on Thunderbird met and decided they needed more full-time staff to keep the program stable and add new features that users wanted.
In 2015, Mozilla's leader, Mitchell Baker, said that Thunderbird development needed to be separate from Firefox. Mozilla still wanted to help Thunderbird but needed more assistance with its development.
Recent Developments (2017-Present)
In 2017, it was announced that the Mozilla Foundation would continue to support Thunderbird legally and financially. Thunderbird would also move its operations away from Mozilla Corporation's systems. The Thunderbird team grew, and they worked on improving security and the user interface.
Newer versions of Thunderbird (like 57 and 58) started to look more like Firefox Quantum, with a new "Photon" design.
With Thunderbird 68 in August 2019, the program started to support a new type of add-on called "WebExtension addons." It also built OpenPGP support directly into the program, so users no longer needed a separate add-on for email encryption.
On January 28, 2020, the Mozilla Foundation announced that Thunderbird would now be run by a new company called MZLA Technologies Corporation. This was to allow the project to explore new products and services and earn money through partnerships.
As of version 78.7.1, Thunderbird only allows "MailExtensions," which are special WebExtensions made for Thunderbird.
Thunderbird 91 brought many improvements, including a new way to set up accounts, support for Apple computers with Apple silicon chips, and a built-in PDF viewer. It also added the ability to encrypt emails sent to BCC recipients.
On June 13, 2022, it was announced that the Thunderbird team would take over the development of the Android email app K-9 Mail. The plan is for K-9 Mail to become the mobile version of Thunderbird, with features that sync between your computer and phone.
Thunderbird Releases
Thunderbird releases new versions in different stages: Beta, Earlybird, and Daily. These stages are similar to how Firefox releases its versions. The release dates and underlying "Gecko" versions are the same as Firefox.
Images for kids
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Dark mode, minimal UI, hide tabs with the extension
See also
In Spanish: Mozilla Thunderbird para niños
