Thunderbird for Android is go – at least the beta is

MZLA, the company behind the Thunderbird email client, is finally putting its mobile email client app into beta testing – but it's a lot more mature than that sounds. Thunderbird for Android has reached beta testing, and you can grab it from the Google Play Store. A version should follow on the FOSS F-Droid store soon. If you …

[Licensed_Radio_Nerd]

No unified inbox please!

Long time user of K9 email - still using 5.600 as the later versions appear to lack the ability to disable the annoying unified inbox and return to the older layout I prefer. I am sure I am a niche-case as most mobile users will only have one email address. Shock news for younger readers: I run my own email server at home (Rocky Linux/Sendmail/Dovecot) with several mailboxes on different domain names! This often leads to the question from dumb-people: "why don't you have a normal email address, like gmail/hotmail?". Answers on a post card...

I hope TB on mobile is more like the TB on the desktop with separate mailboxes. It is slightly tedious to keep side-loading the older K9 app each time my phone/tablet have a fit and decide to update everything - even when the auto-update is disabled for K9.

[I ain't Spartacus]

Re: No unified inbox please!

I hate unified inboxes with a passion. If I wanted one of those, I'd point all my email addresses at one server in first place.

I'm now down to only one for work (plus one shared by the whole team), it used to be two and they were separate for good reason. And then my personal one is also separate from work - also for a reason - because it's personal. I only run one personal email, but that's because I'm not running any clubs.

I really liked the feature on Windows Phone - where there was a unified email client. But you could have a shortcut on the homescreen to each inbox, so you could get all your email in one big confusing blob if you needed to quickly shuffle through some - or operate them as totally separate entities by using the shortcut. In Android I'm using separate email clients.

[Liam Proven]

Re: No unified inbox please!

[Author here]

> (Rocky Linux/Sendmail/Dovecot)

It may amuse you to know that I met Eric "Sendmail" Allman at the EuroBSDCon.

I told him how his program had broken my brain 30 years ago... and got his autograph. :-)

[Licensed_Radio_Nerd]

Re: No unified inbox please!

Nice!

I have had other SysAdmins recoil in horror at my use of Sendmail - often complaining of the mad CF file. Seems they never heard of the M4 macro method. I suspect MTAs are something of a dark art.

I started my journey way back in 1999 when CableTel/NT(H)ell first offered an always-on Internet connection with a cable modem. ipchains was the first thing to learn to keep the riff-raff out of my home-brew Red Hat server. Sendmail was next, and I have spent the time since learning how to make it do what I want. These days it runs with clamav-milter, spamass-milter, greylist-milter, opendmarc, opendkim, and the Spamhaus and Spamcop RBLs; and Fail2ban blocks dodgy types with iptables rules if they keep trying to relay through it. Over the years, I have deployed a variation of my home set-up to provide a front-end filter for Microsoft Exchange, and to act as an in-house MTA to re-route all of the email generated from the in-house Linux systems to cloudy email - which is more important since Microsoft and Google forced OAuth on everyone.

RHEL, and by extension, Rocky, Alma, CentOS, have made it easier as systemctl checks if the cf and db files need to be refreshed, and does so when restarting the daemon. It has not been a requirement to remember the m4 commands for a long time - just systemctl restart sendmail.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: No unified inbox please!

Ah yes, .cf files. Looked like either compressed EBCDIC or modem line noise.

m4 files were better, but I always felt uneasy that I didn't really understand where my actual changes lived.

That's when I started using revision control software. saved my skin multiple times.

I wonder where my "bat book" is right now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: No unified inbox please!

"I have had other SysAdmins recoil in horror at my use of Sendmail - often complaining of the mad CF file. Seems they never heard of the M4 macro method. I suspect MTAs are something of a dark art."

I my own case I'd recoil in horror as I had to configure CF files directly *before* the M4 macro method existed.

I didn't find a reference from a quick online search but, from memory, I'd guess the sendmail M4 macros appeared around 1994 or 1995.

[Chris Gray 1]

Re: No unified inbox please!

I sort-of squinted at the config files and did monkey-see, monkey-do. Worked, too.

Then on one new machine I couldn't get the new installation to deal with anything except machine-local emails. That was years ago, so I can't give details. Eventually gave up and went with Postfix. That's been all good so far.

I actually still send some emails with /bin/mail. Alpine for attachments. Detest web mail.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: No unified inbox please!

Several years ago I used to work with Eric's "replacement", the CTO of Sendmail Inc (now part of Proofpoint).

Was the 1st time I'd been near sendmail since the mid-1990s (back then the introduction of m4 configuration made sendmail slightly more usable).

[dochego]

Re: No unified inbox please!

Hmm, on K-9mail 6.904 here, and there is a tick box in Settings->Display which disables the Unified Inbox.

[-maniax-]

Re: No unified inbox please!

v6.804 here and "full path" to the setting is...

Settings > General Settings > Display > Accounts List > Show Unified Inbox

[Licensed_Radio_Nerd]

Re: No unified inbox please!

It is not just the unified inbox. 5.6.000 used to start with the account list when you opened the app, and that allowed you to see how many emails were waiting and in which mailbox. The later app does not seem to offer that. You can add widgets to each account, which just clutters the screen with extra icons.

I am not the only one that prefers to operate this way: https://forum.k9mail.app/t/why-was-the-account-overview-screen-useful/1573/31

And now having tried the latest version on Android 14, I cannot side-load the older version. Sometimes, progress is backwards!

[Dan 55]

Re: No unified inbox please!

that allowed you to see how many emails were waiting and in which mailbox

You can get that by tapping the hamburger menu. A drawer appears from the left side showing the current account at the top and the folder list below. If you tap the drop-down arrow then the folder list is replaced by the account list and each account shows the number of unread items.

But no, there doesn't appear to be a way to get it to start with the account list open.

To sideload older apks you need a recent version of adb.

[Licensed_Radio_Nerd]

Re: No unified inbox please!

Genius - thank you for the tip. Older version is back in place.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: No unified inbox please!

The fact that you have to tap anything for what was one of the most useful defaults just underscores what crap it is.

[Liam Proven]

Re: No unified inbox please!

[Author here]

> I am not the only one that prefers to operate this way: https://forum.k9mail.app/t/why-was-the-account-overview-screen-useful/1573/31

Please *please* go sign into the Mozilla Bugzilla and _tell them_. If they know, they may fix it. If they don't, they definitely won't.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: No unified inbox please!

Unfortunately, they consistently close as "won't fix" any enhancement requests for bringing back the optional "Accounts overview" screen ever since they removed it after 5.600. See for example https://github.com/thunderbird/thunderbird-android/issues/4405

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: No unified inbox please!

Yeah, after 5.6 when I gave up on K9.

Account overview was its best feature, particularly with lots of accounts. Now a glorified gmail clone. Multiclick side bar nonsense.

Dev was "heard all those comments but I like it now so that's it - maybe some day we'll look at it". Yeah right. He clearly only has a couple of accounts.

Sounded like TB devs "you'll learn to love it like we did". Ah nope it's sh1t. " But you'll love it eventually". Nope. Years later, still sh1t.

He'll be in good company there.

FWIW FairEmail is quite good and the dev pretty responsive.

All IMHO.

[The Man Who Fell To Earth]

Re: No unified inbox please!

Agreed. I too was a long time K9 user & 5.600 was the last decent version. Christian Ketterer clearly has never been a user of K9 with multiple email accounts.

[Neil Barnes]

I shall be testing it shortly; I've been waiting.

I currently use K9 on the phone but it has a couple of quirks where Outlook (gasp) is superior: it has a habit of showing very long lines of very small text instead of flowing it, and when attaching a picture from the phone camera it doesn't offer an option to shrink them as Outlook does.

But on the other hand, it doesn't stuff advertising emails in the list <grr>

I use Thunderbird on the (linux) laptop and it suits me fine; in particular it doesn't need to be connected to reference older emails.

[Neil Barnes]

Re: I shall be testing it shortly; I've been waiting.

Hmm. First sight is not significantly different from above. Though it seems the long lines are an Outlook effect too - perhaps some bozo is sending text as a picture or something equally stupid.

[Neil Barnes]

Re: I shall be testing it shortly; I've been waiting.

Plus an odd choice: received images aren't scaled to the text; the text is scaled to the image (so a big image ends up with tiny text). Outlook keeps the text to screen width, so it's generally legible, but scales the pictures down.

That's a shame.

[tony72]

Based on K9 Mail, hmm. I used K9 for ages, but eventually switched to FairEmail - K9 was a little clunky, and aesthetically somewhat lacking - it didn't really even try to fit in with Android visually. I hope the Thunderbird fork has made significant progress in those areas.

[Charlie Clark]

I also switched to FairMail when K9 stagnated and happy to pay for it. As with anything full of features, it can take a while to understand all the options, but it's a great e-mail client that gets regular updates.

For the couple of Exchange servers I have to use for customers, I use NineWork which is so much better than Outlook.

[Wcool]

Plus one for FairEmail

I used to use K9 too but it's surprising how such an old email client was easily outdone by this young whippersnapper. I also like the pricing model and the attitude to privacy by its author.

Very much recommended.

[Anonymous Coward]

> clunky, and aesthetically somewhat lacking

Well my main email client is Pegasus Mail, so "clunky and aesthetically lacking" isn't really a problem for me... :-p

[Steve Graham]

I don't think you've mentioned any differences or improvements compared to K9. Is there any reason I should migrate? (I do almost all of my mail on the PC anyway. Mobile mail only comes in useful occasionally.)

[Forget It]

Will K9 update to TB?

in the near future?

[Liam Proven]

Re: Will K9 update to TB?

> Will K9 update to TB?

The official statement is that, for now, the older branded app will remain available, with its own look/logo/theme etc., and you will be able to choose it instead.

Whether they will stay in feature parity and K9 will be updated I don't know. My guess is: probably not.

[alain williams]

I thought that this article was a duplicate ...

but then realised that it was different from Missing Thunderbirds footage found in British garden shed.

[heyrick]

complete with bottom-posting

How long, I wonder, until something properly supports inline quotes like we used to do all the time on Fido and Usenet?

On modern devices, it seems like it's only the iOS mail client that can manage to do this. I use Android these days so if anybody has any suggestions (other than copy-pasting the message in K9 and faking it manually)...

[druck]

Interleaved posting

complete with bottom-posting

Bottom posting is just as bad as top posting, i.e. leaving a great chunk of the previous post(s) anywhere in the email.

The correct style is interleaved posting, where you interleave your reply beneath the lines in the previous message which make points you are responding to, and snip out any parts which aren't required for context.

[My other car WAS an IAV Stryker]

Re: Interleaved posting

But but but that takes more time and thought to not only create (write) but also read! You monster!

(See icon. I do this too. You make three points; you get three replies -- in a single email -- each tailored to one point at a time.)

[Arthur the cat]

Re: Interleaved posting

The correct style is interleaved posting

I believe the correct term for this is "intercalated" posting. Much fancier word for it.

[Obvious icon.]

[Mockup1974]

Still no support for HTML signatures

>b-but you have to use plain text

It doesn't matter what the nerds say. In the business world, people have to use their corporate signatures with images and links. A plain text signature won't be enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Still no support for HTML signatures

So? Can't you add links and pictures to a text-only email?

[fnusnu]

No zoom and reflow

More useless rubbish from Mozilla :(

[fnusnu]

Re: No zoom and reflow

Thumbs down from those under 40 I'm guessing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: No zoom and reflow

Then you'd be wrong again.

[PRR]

Not ready for me.

It DID set-up my gMail with a bare minimum of input from me, unlike recent desktop apps where I had to carry tokens around. OTOH it gave me a blank Unified Inbox. The plain Inbox had my stuff but showed a message from last year as Most Recent. Subfolders (other than several built-in ones) appear to be an alien concept. It's constantly Notifying; I get it, I could be employed and need the messages ASAP, but I don't. After 30 hours I deleted it.

[osxtra]

Did notice that 8.0b1 was actually called "Thunderbird Beta", and for 8.0.b2 it's back to "K9 Mail".

The beta is good. My old K9 v6.something started freezing; sometimes the messages would never appear. The account is near its 2G quota; every now and again I run a script on the server to delete old messages and free up space, 'cause, you know, I'm not Big G, and my VPS would charge a boatload if I had as much storage as the desktop, which is POP. For phone/tablet/laptop/whatever, it's IMAP.

I'd exported the old K9 profile when putting the beta on, and had to enter passwords again. For 8.0.b1 to 8.0.b2, it was able to grab them, importing straight from the 8.0.b1 app.

Personally I find the unified method to be less than useful - why even have multiple accounts if you're going to just see everything lumped together anyway - but as one can choose either unified, or a single account when viewing messages (inbox, sent, whatever), it's not an issue. Just make sure "Show Accounts" is selected in settings and you'll get the option for each account in the hamburger menu.

[PaulHayes]

Interesting, I'll give it a go. I'm a long-time user of Thunderbird on desktop, even though work have moved to O365 I still use Thunderbird with it as I can't get on with outlook.

I did used to use K9 on my phone but I gave up with it a year or so ago as it got in a state where it kept crashing and even reinstalling didn't resolve it. I had been using BlueMail but I'll try this Thunderbird branded K9, just installed it and setup my 2 personal mail accounts and so far so good.