A Thunderbird iOS Beta Arrives Later This Year

Now that the Thunderbird email client has an Android app, the Thunderbird team is finally setting its sights on iOS. An app beta, available via Test Flight, should arrive by the end of the year. Just don’t expect too much from it.

Thunderbird on iOS: Baby Steps

Thunderbird announced its iOS plans in a new progress report. Details are slim, but the group is currently working on some “basic architectural decisions” and will set up a barebones GitHub repo in the coming weeks or months. After hiring a Senior Software Engineer—interviews are currently underway—Thunderbird will launch a limited-availability app beta through the Apple Test Flight program. This app beta is expected to arrive before the end of 2025.

Building an iOS email client from scratch is an extremely daunting task. Thunderbird got off easy with the Android app, which was built on top of the existing K-9 Mail client, but there is no foundation on which to build an iOS experience. As a result, early Test Flight builds of Thunderbird on iOS will be extremely simple. These early builds will have the ability to display emails, but they may not be able to send emails.

Still, progress is progress, even when it’s slow-moving. It’s exciting to see Thunderbird rise from the ashes, and open-source email clients are always a welcome addition to the world of iOS.

Upcoming Improvements for Thunderbird on Android

While the Thunderbird for iOS news is appreciated, it’s really just a footnote at the bottom of Thunderbird’s new progress report. The bulk of this report centers around Thunderbird’s Android app, which is quickly gaining new improvements, tweaks, and bugfixes.

At the time of writing, Thunderbird for Android’s “account drawer” is kind of a mess. It’s hard to differentiate between different logins, account icons jump around, and the accounts sidebar isn’t very useful to people who do not use multiple email accounts. So, Thunderbird is sharing mockups of an improved account drawer with more intuitive layouts and controls (plus the option to assign images to email address icons). The community’s response to these mockups will be considered by Thunderbird’s design and development teams before any real changes are implemented.

Broken notifications and slow syncing in Thunderbird for Android are also being addressed. These problems are primarily due to permissions errors, so the Thunderbird team is trying to find a way to notify users when necessary permissions are disabled. Tweaks to in-app language, including vague terms like “sync” and “push,” are also under consideration.

Finally, Thunderbird is working to resolve the Gmail login issue that affects K-9 Mail users. This problem, which is caused by Google’s new auditing and certification requirements for third-party email apps, does not affect the Thunderbird app (although a similar issue with Microsoft email accounts afflicted Thunderbird early last year). Unfortunately, Google is giving “inconsistent information” to the Thunderbird team that may delay their progress on this issue—best case scenario, remaining K-9 Mail users will regain the ability to log into Gmail accounts by the end of March. Migrating to Thunderbird for Android is the easiest, most immediate workaround.

Keep an eye out for the next Thunderbird for Android roadmap, which should arrive in the coming weeks. The Thunderbird team has proposed several new improvements for the roadmap, including improved message synchronization functionality, HTML signature support, quick filter actions (like the kind that are available on Thunderbird Desktop), and full Android 15 compatibility. Check out the new progress report to learn more.

Source: Mozilla