This is the best way to monetize the extra sevices imo.
For others: https://archive.is/20250822144210/https://blog.thunderbird.n...
Mozilla tried this with "Pocket", then gave up. But as part of Pocket integration, Firefox bookmarks were made less useful. Wonder what will be enshittified in Thunderbird to force people to the "pro" services.
The article is littered with phrases like "optional", "opt-in", "self-host", "For users who prefer to run their own infrastructure", "completely optional suite of (open source) services". How more blatant can they get? Even if your eyes passed over the words I won't believe you if you told me you read the article. It's not reading if you are missing a point that is excessively being shoved in your face.
I see no reason for Thunderbird to be enshitified.
Thunderbird is also not Mozilla anymore.
They left Mozilla at some point but later joined again.
They address exactly that gripe at the end.
> at the end
I really hope this takes off well and provides some funding for the Thunderbird project too. Currently the only way to monetarily support Thunderbird is through donations (https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/donate/ ).
I doubt donations to MZLA Technologies Corporation will reach the Thunderbird project in any meaningful way.
They'll just use it to pay their executive salaries.
You are basing this statement on what data?
https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/donate is managed by MZLA, it has one open source product, Thunderbird. We pay a required Thunderbird trademark fee to the Mozilla Foundation and little more than that, which is captured in https://stats.thunderbird.net/#financials.
Absolutely bonkers.
I know people here don’t like Bryan Lunduke, but besides the opinions added, this is factual, sourced reporting.
No doubt though that the increase in executive salaries has been way beyond criticism as well.
Their finances seems a total mess and completely hijacked.
But it's a different company. EOM.
One thing I might be interested in is the "contacts" side of mail. In an effort to move away from too much Google, I ditched Google Contacts and host my own CardDAV using "Radicale" [0]. This works, and I also access it via DAVx on Android.
But would a CardDAV server be something worthwhile via Thundermail? Or perhaps too small a service itself? Maybe part of their scheduling tool "Appointment"? I might prefer having this hosted elsewhere than in my house.
https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/1500000278342-Se...
https://www.fastmail.com/blog/carddav-your-contacts-everywhe...
I’ve always felt TB to be clunky, outdated with an ecosystem of abandoned extensions that haven’t been updated since GMail got popular, but I haven’t tried it in the last 3 years to see if it got better.
I’ll give TB another try. Web apps always feel terrible.
[0]: https://www.omglinux.com/major-thunderbird-redesign-early-lo...
I followed the steps in that blog post and was able to mostly get there. I have a bit less padding between folders than the mock-up showed (which seems like a theme thing rather than a configuration item), and I don't have profile pictures in the message list.
Then next day I'm using Inkscape on a Mac. Cmd-A on the canvas selects all elements. Cmd-A in a text field selects all elements on the canvas - and whatever text was in the field, now applies to the selection, so I start typing and instantly get garbage.
How do you Select All in a text field? Ctrl-A of course! - On the only system that has a non-broken copy/paste in the terminal.
I guess props to Thunderbird for leaving some space on the title bar to drag the window around? Do not take it for granted.
Two years ago we were told:
> We're going to build it right, and that means rewriting large pieces of our codebase. We'll ship the remaining stuff when they are ready.
I'm not sure how much more of the designs have actually been realised since then?
> Cryptic icons with no text
> Optimised for looking good on a screenshot and not for actual user interaction
No thanks :)
Ahh, will Thunderbird finally see full JMAP support? Hooray!
For the self-hosters (other than those using Stallwart):
Cyrus does, of course, support JMAP (it's what Fastmail uses); Dovecot has apparently no interest / no manpower to really implement it themselves, but are willing to take a contribution[0].
One day I am going to configure Cyrus just for JMAP.
[0]: https://dovecot.org/mailman3/archives/list/dovecot@dovecot.o...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43560885 ("Mozilla launching “Thundermail” email service to take on Gmail, Microsoft 365 (techradar.com)"—4 months ago, 341 comments)
Is there any email hosting out there with support for JMAP?
One can of course use Stalwart to run a hosted email service.
> Let us handle the complexities of your email infrastructure with our comprehensive managed email server service.
But for the original question:
> Is there any email hosting out there with support for JMAP?
Stalwart really isn't a practical answer, at least yet.
They can also remove email from the remote and keep just the local copy. Pretty much 1:1 with POP. I've been using this setup (with fdm) for probably more than a decade.
I like that everything is optional. Nothing is forced on people. I know Mozilla gets these complaints a lot and while there is some validity to them it's not like this also isn't true about any other platform... Plus, most complaints are about optional things...
I'd love to see integration with Relay[0]. I already use this as it is a big help to reduce spam. Integrate with bitwarden and I can give every website a unique email and password. I hate that this is a thing that needs be done, but it is a big help and worth 2 beers a year.
I've actually always been surprised more people don't use Thunderbird. It's got problems, but I've had fewer problems with it than GMail, Apple Mail, or Outlook. Some "features" on those platforms even feel hostile[1]. Hell, just the filtering capabilities make a massive improvement[1]. I mean there's of junk mail I catch this way that none of the other services do. I'm all for advanced spam filtering but come on, if I can catch it with "[To or CC] + [contains] + [<name>]" then you've done fucked up[3].
[0] https://relay.firefox.com/
[1] I never understood how people fall for those Paypal bitcoin scams until I saw one of those emails on my iPhone (and then checked Apple Mail to see if it was the same). Straight up rendered the PDF in browser giving no indication that it was a PDF and not text (GMail doesn't do this). I mean I don't have a Paypal account but I could see how my grandma could fall for that. Plus, they hide the addresses where in thunderbird this is much more apparent.
[2] One favorite filter is those "logged in from a new device". I get the toast notification on my machine (which I want) but it gets pushed to another folder so doesn't litter my inbox. Similar idea for other things like newsletters and email that borderlines junk (or is literal junk and hard to capture).
[3] These are LLM generated emails where the source is drastically different from what renders. Google support just told me to click "Report Spam" despite me telling them I've been doing that for a year and get these emails a few times a month...
Has this been true ever?