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The Thunderbird Blog
Company blog · blog.thunderbird.netprogrammingproductivity
The Thunderbird Blog is the company blog at blog.thunderbird.net, writing about programming and productivity. Since 2020, 109 different Hacker News readers have linked it 177 times, most often “Thunderbird’s New Home”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-01, and you can follow it by feed.
News, previews, and guides from the Thunderbird Team
Most-linked posts?
- Thunderbird’s New Home17 people · 17 mentions · first linked 2020-01-28
- Thunderbird Is Thriving: Our 2022 Financial Report10 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2023-05-09
- State of the Bird 2024/257 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2025-10-08
- State of the Bird: Thunderbird Annual Report 2023-20245 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2024-10-02
- Thundermail and Thunderbird Pro Services5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2025-04-04
- Thunderbird adds native Microsoft Exchange email support4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2025-11-18
- Thunderbird for Android Preview: Modern Message Redesign4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2022-12-05
- The Future of Thunderbird3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-02-09
- An Update on Thunderbird Sync3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-07-31
- Bringing Exchange Support to Thunderbird3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-04-19
What Hacker News says?
While I agree with this: > Work on the bloody browser, forget about the rest. There is also this: > As of today, the Thunderbird project will be operating from a new wholly owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation, MZLA Technologies Corporation. [1] (January 28th 2020) I think that proper email and calendar is what people need too. It's a big market and something you would more obviously pay for than a browser. Pr…
Comment linking /2020/01/thunderbirds-new-home/
on “Mozilla lays off 250 employees while it refocuses on commercial products”Submitted Thunderbird 102 as a story · 811 points
HN discussionThunderbird is quite healthy and received $8.6M in donations in 2023[0] which is used to employ 24 people[1]. Unlike Firefox, donations are used to fund development. [0]: https://blog.thunderbird.net/2024/10/thunderbird-annual-repo... [1]: https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/05/thunderbird-is-thriving...
Comment linking /2023/05/thunderbird-is-thriving-our-2022-financial-report/
on “Mozilla to shut down Pocket and Fakespot”Submitted Our plans for Thunderbird on Android as a story · 724 points
HN discussion> If anything, they should spin off development of Thunderbird into a separate company with its own independent funding structure. They already did that. - In 2012 Mozilla (the corporation) started this move by announcing that "Thunderbird was not a priority for Mozilla" [1]. At this point Mozilla (corp) stopped actively investing in Thunderbird. - In 2015, Mitchel Baker made it clear that the Mozilla (corp) wanted…
Comment linking /2020/01/thunderbirds-new-home/
on “Firefox Was Always Enough”Submitted Thunderbird for iOS as a story · 468 points
HN discussionOn 2, I actually think that the right sideproject does have the ability to market Firefox and grows its userbase better than making incremental gains in the browser. For example, Firefox Send was a clever way of putting the brand in front of many people who might never have seen it. On 3, I too would love to see that happen, but, from the outside at least, the project has seen so much upheaval [1]. I don't really un…
Comment linking /2020/01/thunderbirds-new-home/
on “Firefox Was Always Enough”Submitted Thunderbird adds native Microsoft Exchange email support as a story · 463 points
HN discussionYeap. It's mentioned in their financial reports that user donations represent more than 99.9% of our annual revenue [0]. Also seems their staff is mainly engineers/developers, and all the expenses are concentrated to their product*. Thunderbird doing what Firefox should. [0]: https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/05/thunderbird-is-thriving... *Though Thunderbird is Gecko-based so can be said in part, perhaps a significa…
Comment linking /2023/05/thunderbird-is-thriving-our-2022-financial-report/
on “Is Mozilla trying hard to kill itself?”Submitted What’s New in Thunderbird 78 as a story · 444 points
HN discussionYes! My pet peeve is people keep saying "no one would pay" or "it wouldn't work" but the thing is, as far as I know, it has never been tried. For example Thunderbird is fully funded by donations.[1] Of course Thunderbird's budget is in a different magnitude than Firefox but I'd guess the amount of users is also in a different magnitude. [1] https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/05/thunderbird-is-thriving...
Comment linking /2023/05/thunderbird-is-thriving-our-2022-financial-report/
on “Let me pay for Firefox”Submitted Thunderbird Supernova Preview: The New Calendar Design as a story · 421 points
HN discussionHere is the official announcement: https://blog.thunderbird.net/2022/06/revealed-thunderbird-on...
Comment linking /2022/06/revealed-thunderbird-on-android-plans-k9/
on “Thunderbird 102”Submitted Thunderbird’s New Home as a story · 298 points
HN discussionThunderbird operates independently within Mozilla: > There was a time when Thunderbird’s future was uncertain, and it was unclear what was going to happen to the project after it was decided Mozilla Corporation would no longer support it. But in recent years donations from Thunderbird users have allowed the project to grow and flourish organically within the Mozilla Foundation. Now, to ensure future operational succ…
Comment linking /2020/01/thunderbirds-new-home/
on “Our plans for Thunderbird on Android”Submitted Thunderbird 140 “Eclipse” as a story · 294 points
HN discussionThunderbird is entirely funded by donations for some years now and is more than enough. In 2024, Thunderbird received $10.3M (19% increase over the previous year) in donations which was used to employ 43 people. https://blog.thunderbird.net/2025/10/state-of-the-bird-2024-...
Comment linking /2025/10/state-of-the-bird-2024-25/
on “Mozilla appoints new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo”Submitted Bringing Exchange Support to Thunderbird as a story · 278 points
HN discussion> Mozilla Mail Aren't they already moving towards this? The Thunderbird team recently announced ThunderMail which will have an optional $9/year plan. https://www.tb.pro/en-US/thundermail/ > Thunderbird for iOS https://blog.thunderbird.net/2025/10/state-of-the-bird-2024-... > We’ve also seen the overwhelming demand to build a version of Thunderbird for the iOS community. Unlike the Android app, the iOS app is being b…
Comment linking /2025/10/state-of-the-bird-2024-25/
on “Mozilla appoints new CEO Anthony Enzor-Demeo”Submitted Thunderbird for Android Now Available as a story · 236 points
HN discussionI think Thunderbird gets to piggyback on some Mozilla infrastructure - hosting, CI/CD, receiving donations into a dedicated Thunderbird pool - but has been mostly cut out as you describe for some time. https://blog.thunderbird.net/2012/07/the-community-is-standi...
Comment linking /2012/07/the-community-is-standing-behind-thunderbird/
on “Ask HN: Why is Firefox losing marketshare and how would you save it?”Submitted Thunderbird Pro August 2025 Update as a story · 166 points
HN discussionWe implemented this in the Daily build of the desktop app last year, using a staging environment for Firefox Sync. But Firefox Sync is called Firefox Sync because it’s built for Firefox. Thunderbird profiles, in comparison, have a lot more data points. This meant we had to build something completely different. As we started to spin up Thunderbird Pro, we decided it made more sense to have a Thunderbird account that…
Comment linking /2025/09/state-of-the-thunder-mozilla-connect-updates/
on “Thunderbird adds native Microsoft Exchange email support”Submitted Thunderbird.net Has a New Look as a story · 96 points
HN discussionRead the docs? https://blog.thunderbird.net/2025/11/thunderbird-adds-native...
Comment linking /2025/11/thunderbird-adds-native-microsoft-exchange-email-support/
on “Thunderbird adds native Microsoft Exchange email support”Submitted Thunderbird Time Machine: Windows XP and Thunderbird 1.0 as a story · 94 points
HN discussionYes, in the background window in this screenshot https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2020/07/Dark-Mode-1.png you can see manual Light and Dark options as well as Auto.
Comment linking /files/2020/07/Dark-Mode-1.png
on “What’s New in Thunderbird 78”Submitted Thunderbird’s New Home (2020) as a story · 77 points
HN discussionMany of these UI changes seem like backward steps. https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2020/07/compose-compariso... Old: Clear that you can enter multiple "To" addresses. Obvious that the formatting buttons are buttons. New: Single-line "to" implies you can only enter one address. "Flat" buttons don't look like buttons. https://blog.thunderbird.net/files/2020/07/account-setup.png Extra white space makes the window ne…
Comment linking /files/2020/07/account-setup.png
on “What’s New in Thunderbird 78”Submitted Thunderbird 128 "Nebula" as a story · 62 points
HN discussion
