The recent release of Thunderbird 115 (aka “Supernova”) seems to have gone down well with users of all shades, across all platforms — which is always nice to see.

To keep things ticking over nicely a scheduled update to the open source email client is rolling out. The update brings a bunch of bug fixes to bear, plus a couple of minor UI tweaks.

Thunderbird 115.1 hides the Quick Filter bar by default. I think this gives the e-mail client (in whatever layout you’re using) a sleeker presentation. Still it’s only hidden by default not removed; the Quick Filter bar is still included and you can show/hide it with a mouse click or a key press.

Quick filter bar showing – it’s now disabled by default

Secondly, Thunderbird developers say they adjusted the heights of the tab toolbar and Unified toolbar to be, in their words, ‘more consistent’. The update also includes other unspecified “visual and style fixes”.

Notable bug fixes and behaviour quirks Thunderbird 115.1 addresses:

  • Message-ID header used account domain instead of “From” field domain
  • Zooming did not work in multi-message view
  • “Clear Recent History” dialog did not resize correctly to fit content
  • Tooltip did not appear when hovering over message in card view
  • Message List column headers became transparent in increased contrast mode
  • Message List card padding was incorrect in compact view
  • Messages in deeply nested IMAP folders were inaccessible
  • Thunderbird Flatpak could not be executed using command “thunderbird”
  • CardDAV address book dialog did not resize properly

For more details see the Thunderbird 115.1 release notes.

Getting Thunderbird 115.1

Updates from Thunderbird 102 to Thunderbird 115 remain inactive for now on Windows, macOS, and Linux (when using the standalone binary) but users can download Thunderbird 115.1 from the official Thunderbird website directly if they don’t want to wait.

Ubuntu user? We won’t get Thunderbird 115 as a regular repo software update (new Thunderbird releases aren’t typically back-ported) but the release is available to install (officially) from Flathub, as a standalone binary (see above).

An updated Thunderbird snap (maintained by Canonical) is close to rolling out.