Lastly! Mozilla’s Thunderbird email client is getting a makeover

For some individuals, offline email is nonetheless the best way to go. Be it resulting from behavior, distrust of cloud providers, or smart prudence about backups, downloading email to a client nonetheless elements giant of their routine. Mozilla Thunderbird is a key a part of such setups due to its hefty set of options and zero-cost price ticket. But Thunderbird has lengthy been criticized for its outdated interface, and never with out trigger—it nonetheless appears to be like prefer it’s caught in 2003.

That will lastly change in July, with the upcoming launch of model 115. As detailed in a Thunderbird weblog submit, this 12 months’s replace of the client will sport a “simple and clean” person interface friendlier to new adopters. Customization choices will even be out there, permitting the client to retain a acquainted vibe for long-time customers. (Though given the repeated references the group makes within the weblog submit to the questions they’ve acquired in regards to the UI, most Thunderbird veterans will welcome the refreshed look.)

In addition to revamping the software program’s person interface and expertise, the Thunderbird group additionally plans to overtake its code to make it leaner, rewrite previous code, and in any other case clear up and modernize the code base. And, like Firefox, Thunderbird will transfer to month-to-month launch schedules.

You can learn extra in regards to the builders’ causes for rebuilding Thunderbird (and why it’s taken so lengthy) within the weblog submit, which supplies a broad overview of the email client’s lengthy historical past—together with seminal moments that affected the software program’s course, just like the 2012 transfer to community-driven improvement. But the in need of it is, long-time Thunderbird followers are lastly getting what they requested for.

Author: Alaina Yee, Senior Editor