Thunderbird for Android now available

[Posted October 30, 2024 by jzb]

The first stable release of the Thunderbird mail client for Android is now available:

Just over two years ago, we announced our plans to bring Thunderbird to Android by taking K-9 Mail under our wing. The journey took a little longer than we had originally anticipated and there was a lot to learn along the way, but the wait is finally over! For all of you who have ever asked "when is Thunderbird for Android coming out?", the answer is – today!

It is immediately available on the Google Play Store, via GitHub Releases, or from the Thunderbird web site, and it will be "coming soon" to the F-Droid repository for FOSS Android applications. See the release notes for detailed information about Thunderbird 8.0 for Android.

Import settings from K-9 Mail

Posted Oct 30, 2024 17:09 UTC (Wed) by evgeny (subscriber, #774) [Link] (6 responses)

Hmm, it turns out import from K-9 isn't supported. Really?!

Import settings from K-9 Mail

Posted Oct 30, 2024 17:21 UTC (Wed) by legoktm (subscriber, #111994) [Link] (2 responses)

They have documentation saying it's supported: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/thunderbird-android-... (haven't tried migrating yet myself).

Overall I'm pretty excited for this as a long time Thunderbird and K-9 user.

Import settings from K-9 Mail

Posted Oct 30, 2024 17:50 UTC (Wed) by evgeny (subscriber, #774) [Link] (1 responses)

Well, then, I've encountered a bug... Will report.

Import settings from K-9 Mail

Posted Oct 31, 2024 16:39 UTC (Thu) by AbsoluteWisp (guest, #174359) [Link]

Sorry if I'm being annoying, but make sure you're on the latest version of K-9 before trying. For me, it told me my K-9 Mail app version wasn't supported for import, but after updating through Google Play it went through no problem with only a few clicks to re-add gmail/outlook accounts since they have their own login process

Import settings from K-9 Mail

Posted Oct 30, 2024 17:51 UTC (Wed) by danielbaumann (subscriber, #38804) [Link]

It works if you first export the settings to a file in K-9, and then import from that file in Thunderbird.

Import settings from K-9 Mail

Posted Oct 30, 2024 19:59 UTC (Wed) by vbabka (subscriber, #91706) [Link] (1 responses)

When I was trying the TB beta, the instructions said I had to upgrade to K-9 8.0 beta to make the profile import work. Then it worked, imported even password (I think file export omits them). Seems like it's still the case, TB final offered import from K-9 (still have the beta installed) and TB beta. K-9 8.0 seems to be still beta, at least on Google Play. They could have made sure it's final first, for a smoother experience...

Import settings from K-9 Mail

Posted Oct 30, 2024 20:04 UTC (Wed) by evgeny (subscriber, #774) [Link]

Right, 8.0 was released 2 days ago. After having updated, the import worked smoothly.

Interested

Posted Oct 30, 2024 19:21 UTC (Wed) by jkingweb (subscriber, #113039) [Link] (8 responses)

I've been using K-9 for a decade now, but I can't say I particularly like it; I just dislike it less than other options. So, count me as cautiously optimistic, I guess? It'll be interesting to get a new take on the same basic idea.

I'll wait for F-Droid builds before checking it out, though.

Interested

Posted Oct 30, 2024 19:33 UTC (Wed) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] (7 responses)

Try FairEmail. I switched from K9 quite a while ago and it's excellent. Marcel's support for it is the best in the business, bar none. He implemented IMAP NOTIFY on my request and that works brilliantly as well.

I just wish he would charge more for it

Posted Oct 31, 2024 8:37 UTC (Thu) by ras (subscriber, #33059) [Link] (4 responses)

I've just switched to FairMail. I tried Thunderbird, but like K9 (and gmail, oddly) it can't display message/rfc822 attachments.

My only negative $10 one off for the pro version doesn't seem sustainable. I'd be more than happy to pay that plus a yearly recurring fee. Say $2. It has 500k downloads, so $1M/yr should keep him out of the gutter. Realistically it won't be anything like that, I guess, but the thought is there.

It's weird now I think about it, because I normally baulk at paying for software. But open source is different, apparently. For that, it seems I demand to pay more. I guess the improved security, lack of tracking and ads means it's worth a premium over the proprietary alternative.

Maybe there is an opportunity for here for F-Droid. They provide the store, the source, the reproducible builds, and a way to funnel funds to the developer. And a enforceable contract of course, spelling out exactly what is and isn't possible. We've seen what happens when trademark and domain name choke points are combined with "trust us, we are the open source community". Open source is only trustworthy because it can be forked. You can't fork a domain name.

I just wish he would charge more for it

Posted Oct 31, 2024 9:16 UTC (Thu) by walex (guest, #69836) [Link]

> "a yearly recurring fee. Say $2. It has 500k downloads, so $1M/yr"

Usually at most 1-5% of users make donations, whether it is free software or free services like Internet Archive or newsletters etc.

I just wish he would charge more for it

Posted Oct 31, 2024 19:55 UTC (Thu) by ejr (subscriber, #51652) [Link]

I've paid. A few times to avoid the GPlay surcharges. It's very easy not to pay, but I'm not going there. As far as I can tell, there is absolutely nothing hiding that option.

My only issue is not theirs but teh Goog's. Notifications are being wonky. It's noted in release notes.

I just wish he would charge more for it

Posted Nov 10, 2024 15:47 UTC (Sun) by M66B (guest, #174534) [Link] (1 responses)

The app can show messages/rfc822 attachments, even inline. If this doesn't work for you, please contact me:

https://contact.faircode.eu/?product=fairemailsupport

$1M/year: a small fraction of a percent of the users actually supports the app, and I think that's not going to change. That's not a problem, since the app is there to help people protect their privacy, and not to earn money. The purchases/donations are enough to cover the costs (hardware, licenses, websites and a mandatory yearly CASA security audit).

I just wish he would charge more for it

Posted Nov 11, 2024 10:54 UTC (Mon) by ras (subscriber, #33059) [Link]

> The app can show messages/rfc822 attachments, even inline.

I meant Thunderbird can't show messages/rfc822 attachments. FairMail does, which is why I use it.

I used BlueMail before finding FairMail. It's very good and free, but isn't open source and so doesn't earn the same level of trust.

> $1M/year: a small fraction of a percent of the users actually supports the app

The reality is only a small portion of the users will understand the privacy implications. It's unfortunate. Right now, you seem to have a monopoly on open source email clients that do fundamental things like display common attachments such as messages/rfc822. I wish that was worth more than it apparently is. There may be a day when a venture altruist is a thing, but evidently we aren't there yet.

vs FairEmail?

Posted Oct 31, 2024 11:09 UTC (Thu) by Herve5 (subscriber, #115399) [Link]

I'm a paid user on FairEmail since forever (plus other utilities from the same dev), but I'd be interested by a feature comparison with this android-Thunderbird...
Knowing that FairEmail incorporates each and every features one can dream of -actually, maybe a bit too many of them, so one has to frown a bit in front of the settings panels.
As commented above, the dev is incredibly reactive.
The only small negative point I see on FairEmail is for cases with dozens email accounts and thousands emails in each, it's a bit slower than K9 (but so more secure...)

FairEmail

Posted Nov 4, 2024 23:16 UTC (Mon) by jch (guest, #51929) [Link]

> Try FairEmail [...] it's excellent.

I'd like to second that. I've been using FairEmail as my only mobile mailer for four years now, and I'm very happy with it. It can be configured to send plain text mails by default, it's able to reformat most mails to be legible on a small screen, and it seems to be successful at blocking tracking images. Oh, and it will format text/markdown mails on the fly.

Download: https://github.com/M66B/FairEmail/releases

It's available on F-Droid, but the author updates the direct download fairly often, so it's worth pointing Obtainium at it.

So far, so good...

Posted Oct 31, 2024 21:33 UTC (Thu) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link]

So far, it looks and behaves like K-9. I guess that's to be expected; I imagine they mostly worked on branding rather than major core changes.

I assume there will be no further development on K-9, so I hope Thunderbird stays reasonable and the developers don't make it radically different.

I did try FairEmail, but for some reason it felt less comfortable than the K-9 interface.