A brand new version of the Thunderbird email client is out – and it’s looking fire!
Many of the major UI changes teased last year make their debut here in Thunderbird 115, which has been dubbed “Supernova” and is available to download for Windows, macOS, and Linux from July 11 from a beautifully revamped Thunderbird homepage.
The changes are more than skin deep, too.
The client’s codebase has undergone extensive rebuilding in order to lay a “solid groundwork for future releases that will make Thunderbird a significantly better email client”, to quote Ryan Sipes, Thunderbird’s Product and Business Development Manager.
You’ll notice scores differences the second you launch the new version:
The spaces sidebar introduced in Thunderbird 102 now extends full height (still remains collapsable if you don’t use it) and the title bar incorporates both the search bar and the “AppMenu” (main menu). And when you only have the ‘inbox’ open you finally get the totally flush look you’ve alway wanted..
Vertical layout user? It’s my personal preferred layout. With the spaces sidebar collapsed and the all-new “card view” enabled, Thunderbird’s vertical view is close to be being my perfect UI:
The AppMenu (≡) (which is now located in the titlebar) has been made keyboard-accessible. It also boasts a cleaner look. Developers have reworked it to reduce submenus, surface global options, and uses icons to help users find what they’re looking for, faster.
Other notable highlights:
- Calendar gains an improved colour palette
- Sortable folder modes
- Option to hide local folders
- Restyled ‘density’ controls
- Colourful new ‘tags’ view in folder pane
- Address Book improvements
- Accessibility buffs
- “Move To” and “Copy To” added to Folder context menu
- Assorted OpenPGP enhancements
- Supports OAuth2 for Fastmail
- Option to always show tray icon (Windows)
Check through the Thunderbird 115 release notes for more detail.
Download Thunderbird 115
You can grab the latest release from the official Thunderbird website for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Existing Thunderbird users on macOS and Windows can also update through the app over the coming days.
Linux distros will differ in how and when they package and release this update.
On Ubuntu 22.04 and 23.04 this update won’t be issued as a software update via the repos (unless there’s been some change I don’t know of). You can install the latest release on Ubuntu from the Snap Store, from Flathub, or grab the binary build from the Thunderbird website.
Once you’ve had time to try it out do pop back and let me know what you think of it.