Thunderbird for Android preview: Modern message redesign

https://blog.thunderbird.net/2022/12/thunderbird-for-android-preview-modern-message-redesign/

by _-david-_ • 4 years ago

348 159 4 years ago

blog.thunderbird.net

eterps2• 4 years ago

HN'ers that use the K9 Mail app, with which email provider are you using it?

What features of K9 do you like/dislike, especially compared to the GMail app?

kevinfiol• 4 years ago

I use K9 Mail with Migadu.

Feature-wise, nothing really caught my attention compared to Gmail. At the time that I switched, however, K9 Mail was noticeably snappier for me, had no Google Play Services dependency, and weighed about 7MB to Gmail's 50MB (at the time).

eterps2• 4 years ago

Thanks, never heard of Migadu before.

Tmpod• 4 years ago

Same situation and reasons here.

Migadu has been perfect for my needs. The basic plan at $20/m is more than enough and it's basically dirt cheap. If you're a student you can even get it for half the price. I really like their lax and understanding limit policy.

tintedfireglass• 4 years ago

I use them for my gmail and outlook accounts

johnchristopher• 4 years ago

I use it for work email. No notifications, it's just a way to read-only and check if anything comes up when I am AFK.

branon• 4 years ago

Using it with Gandi.

I mainly like that it's no-BS, just works, is available on F-Droid, small download, dark theme, import/export for accounts and settings, lots of switches to flip in the settings should I find any of them necessary to use. I expect none of this to change with the Thunderbird rebrand so it's a win for both projects _and_ the users as far as I can see.

miedpo• 4 years ago

I use it with a few different email providers, including fastmail and a self hosted server. Works pretty well for what I need it to do.

The only feature it's missing which hurts is nested folders. All nested folders are displayed in a list structure, rather than a tree, which is a bit of a pain if you use a nested archive (think Thunderbird's Monthly Archive structure).

Multicomp• 4 years ago

I use it with Fastmail for my main email + calendar + todos, and I use it with Purelymail[1] for simply emails with no nonsense.

Both accounts, once setup, just behave.

On the groupware front, I use DavX5 and ICSx5 to do to calendar and todo sync to fastmail, and Tasks.org [2] to do the front end for the todos.

For my work accounts, I use the nine email app which lets me authenticate to exchange active sync without needing a work profile on my phone so I can see emails, calendar, todos etc.

[1] purelymail.com

[2] https://tasks.org/

walrus01• 4 years ago

with which email provider are you using it?

My own fully self hosted dns, postfix SMTP and dovecot IMAP over TLS setup. Not something to attempt casually unless you work in network engineering for an ISP and have the motivation to maintain your own MX and email hosting environment for other reasons.

Maxburn3• 4 years ago

You might consider Aquamail. I found it to be more powerful and configurable than K9 or Kaiten when I was on android.

I'm MXRoute/fastmail/gmail/exchange on the back end for MX service providers.

strtby• 4 years ago

Migadu(mydomains), google(gmail), microsoft (outlook/hotmail)

canistel• 4 years ago

I switched back to K9 recently, as OAUTH2 works now. I am using Gmail(IMAP) and Rediffmail(POP3).

Light-weight. Does not add accounts to Android system. Less colours.

pmontra• 4 years ago

I'm using the old K9 (before the pre-Mozilla redesign saga) with three POP3 accounts on the mail servers of the registars of my domains. I check my mail on my phone, read it, delete the unnecessary messages, eventually download on my computer (Thunderbird) and backup.

The old UI is very good at this worflow and that's why I ended up using K9. The new UI with the unified inbox is bad at it. This K9/Thunderbird? I should download it to understand how it works. Probably like the new UI but who knows.

creeble• 4 years ago

I use it on some self-hosted domains (all IMAP) but have used it with Migadu, MXroute, and others.

I generally like it more than FairMail (simpler, fewer options that I seemed to need to set). But I have tried to sell it to other Android users, and not having swipe-delete made all of them give up. I'm fine without it, but would probably adapt to it if it was Thunderbird standard; I use the iOS email app a lot too.

MayeulC• 4 years ago

My own yunohost-based mail server, an ISP mail box, two university mailboxes (zimbra).

I mainly like that it's FOSS and on F-Droid (no google services for me). I haven't used Gmail in years, but IIRC, no annoying smart replies or features I don't use like gdrive, photos, hangouts... denser UI, reliable notifications, unified inbox, good multi-account support, support for gpg. It generally gets out of the way. My mother asked me to reinstall it after she changed phones.

I could use better support for nested IMAP folders, better search and syncing of said folders. Probably a better config workflows for non techies? Though that's pretty good already.

I would really like it to be easier to customize the sender mail address, as I make extensive use of +aliases, and would have to create a new identity each time.

zepearl• 4 years ago

4 self-hosted accounts, but I don't like much the ~new UI because it makes switching account more complex.

nirimda4• 4 years ago

I use K9 with Fastmail. I don't like how difficult it is to search. It seems to involve some complex process of navigating back through the mailbox (from unified Inbox to the actual Inbox of the server) and then running the search locally and then pressing back some unknown number of times until a "send query to remote server" toolbar button pops up, and then I press it and it runs the search remotely. Since it only caches a small proportion of my inbox, I always want to send the query to the remote server - it's likely that I could find the item by scrolling faster than I could find it by searching if it's in the cache. I'd be happy if that button was in any search view instead of having to do the weird and complex dance.

I am willing to tolerate this issue because I don't search all that often. In general, a buggy FOSS app is better to me than a commercial app because it is unstable at any given time but relatively stable over time, whereas commercial apps tend to be stable at any given time but unstable over time.

npteljes• 4 years ago

I use /e/ foundation's Mail, which is a fork of K9. I use it with Posteo. I used Fairemail before, I don't think I miss anything.

college_physics3• 4 years ago

How would that interoperate with the desktop thunderbird?

guerrilla• 4 years ago

It seems to be an unrelated code base.

college_physics3• 4 years ago

that's fine (or could be :-). I am thinking more about syncing the state of differnt mailboxes, local storage on mobile versus desktop, what is read / unread, user tags and other such things. I.e. how to use the mobile and desktop together as different clients to the same email content.

CalebJohn• 4 years ago

They plan to integrate Firefox Sync with Thunderbird (android and desktop)[1]

[1] https://developer.thunderbird.net/planning/roadmap#firefox-s...

college_physics3• 4 years ago

that would actually be... quite good. but I'd love to see more ambition (and community support) for thunderbird. I would like it (or some future converge) to be my RSS reader and, why not, my fediverse client.

Twirrim• 4 years ago

They're improving the email display by reducing the amount of space showing the actual email?

By very rough measurement it's reducing the email display area by about an inch, dropping it from 4" to 3". I really don't want that, myself. I open an email because I want to read the email. That's my primary focus. One of the really nice things about the K9 interface has been that so much of the screen gets dedicated to the thing I actually care about (contrast this to the way that web interfaces like outlook.com love to almost relegate the email content to the bottom most corner)

JaggedJax• 4 years ago

To be fair, they are comparing a best case scenario email in the current UI to a worst case email in the new UI. Multi-line subject, multi-account identifier, tags, external images. So it looks to me like there's actually higher information density in the new UI. A little difficult to tell without a direct comparison of the same email and settings though.

mjw1007• 4 years ago

I agree.

It looks to me like the only place they're really wasting space is the hefty margin above the body text.

nashashmi4• 4 years ago

I don't know. Seems like everything is twice or three times as large.

Click on who else was the message sent to -> appears a big box that you have to scroll to figure out who is included.

worble2• 4 years ago

Yeah, I do think they had a bit of a faux pas with this showcase by not showing like-for-like differences. The first email didn't have multi-line subjects or anything like that, so it's hard to compare the two and see why the update might actually be better.

notpushkin2• 4 years ago

They're also saying the padding “will get tightened up” [1].

I'd also do some other changes though [2], like removing that border around the “Show remote images” button and instead letting it bleed to the whole panel (a trick I've first seen in the Telegram app).

[1] https://blog.thunderbird.net/2022/12/thunderbird-for-android...

[2] https://u.ale.sh/tb-redesign-suggestions.png

asddubs• 4 years ago

yeah I was irritated by that as well, it makes it much harder to compare the designs. I think I prefer the new one though, the old one does look a little clunky

izacus• 4 years ago

Adding better margins and spacing around text significantly improves readability on mobile (usually it also makes UI elements easier to distinguish).

Yes, there's a limit to that, but the new design is most likely result in making emails easier to read despite stealing away screen space.

grammers• 4 years ago

I agree. Design updates in email clients are not that important - unless it actually also improves usability. Unfortunately, most apps just want to look fancy, not focusing on functionality.

Klonoar• 4 years ago

I really don't want that, myself. I open an email because I want to read the email.

You have a working finger and can scroll the small amount necessary to do that. More comfortable properly spaced out/laid out UI/UX is generally ideal.

They should, though (at the very least) just let the padding/margins be configurable for the people who seem to care about this. No reason we can't have a middle ground approach.

e12e• 4 years ago

It's wierd to use different samples for new and old ui too? Why show different email in different design, rather than same email in different design?

Jorengarenar• 4 years ago

Today, it’s something even more exciting: a completely redesigned message view!

Every user in existence: oh no...

jeroenhd2• 4 years ago

I've used K9 in the past for its functionality but I switched back to the Gmail app because the UI wasn't very good. I got the feeling it was designed by and for programmers rather than for a good experience.

I'm sure most K9 users will lament the change and demand (the option) to undo the redesign, but I personally consider this to be a massive improvement, big enough to give switching back a go.

I just hope the users who prefer the old look will have the ability to use a fork/alternate version so that they won't be forced to adopt the new UI, perhaps one that only receives the bare minimum amount of maintenance to keep current features working for those that need them.

nashashmi4• 4 years ago

Eye candy is definitely the appeal of a commercial app. It should not be the appeal of a technical and sophisticated app. And that is what K9 was to so many for so long. The only reason I left for outlook is because I was able to fit more information in a small screen and because my workplace migrated to Exchange which was outlook exclusive.

matteocontrini• 4 years ago

Existing users I would say. The bad UI is probably the main reason K-9 Mail is not that popular.

solarkraft• 4 years ago

Oh boy, I don't like that the document is split by the sender info. Other than that I'm happy that a nice FOSS app is receiving design attention.

Aachen• 4 years ago

Last time I used K9 was in ~2020 (then I discovered FairEmail) so I'm not married to the old UI in any way, but from the before and after screenshots, this seems like a regression:

1. Firstly, why did this need rebuilding? I know they want to rebrand it from K9 to Thunderbird and I'm happy that the thunderbird team isn't going to be caught up for years trying to rewrite what already exists while K9 gets to benefit from a comparatively very, very well-known name. But what was so fundamentally broken here that it needs to be entirely remade? Could just have applied a color scheme.

2. I had trouble recognising the subject as part of the email (but only in the new layout). I was looking for it and looking for it... and it turns out banner blindness strikes again: it's above where I thought the email started. No problem, that's an issue on day one only, people will get used to that soon enough.

3. The attention grabber on every email is going to be the purple-colored "SHOW REMOTE IMAGES" (caps theirs). I can't recall the last time I've shown remote images. Perhaps a Domino's email where they briefly hid the discount codes in images in 2016/'17? Anyway I hope that can be moved into a menu as it apparently was before.

4. The date has like ten characters available to it. What happens when it's not "10:00 am"? This seems designed by a designer, then the coder comes in and finds that "yesterday" still fits but "2022-07-03 22:47" is going a problem. That means either making design decisions single-handedly and annoying users who were promised (and gave input on) a different design, or going back to the design team and the mailing list for input and on lord no let's just hide the time and get something done today

5. There's suddenly a lot more space on the side. Hope that's configurable, I don't have a large phone to begin with. Probably just me.

6. The text seems bold and blurry. Probably the screenshot just isn't shown at 1:1 size (old layout looks crystal sharp though?) and the bold might be the email in question using a bold tag. One can hope.

7. Recipients hidden when the field has literally ONE word in it ("Alessandro"), there is space for at least another same-sized name and a blank line below. I bet if you click that tiny expand button (good luck not pressing on the user and composing an email to them instead), nothing in the layout has to change to show the three other names. This would annoy the heck out of me if I'd use K9 for work where more than one recipient is common.

8. It says "Thunderbird Ryan" on top. Is that me? Is it reminding me who I am / which account I'm using, and using another two lines of text for that (one for the text, top and bottom each like half a line's worth of borders and spacing)? Sure hope that's default hidden if you have one account only and configure if not.

9. What does a green lock with "OpenPGP" mean? Was the email encrypted or signed? Both? Either? Is transport encryption indicated? Can that also trigger the green lock? I was going to ignore this but was looking for something positive to close out with, scrolled down, noticed the pgp overlay screen and that it's also not mentioned on there, and thought that this is an essential UI element if users are ever going to know what the lock icon guarantees, so UI space needs to be in the mockup if you're drawing what the detail views are going to look like.

10. "Alessandro Castell..." is as far as it gets for the sender in the new layout before cutting it off. On the old layout, "Edgar W. Dijkstra" fit with two thirds of the line still empty. There's something to say for putting more on that line, but not even fitting one name in a field where a name is supposed to go? Interesting choice. Hopefully you know your correspondents by full name already or you'll need to open up another view if you only know them by last name, want to address them as Dear Mr. Castellsomething in a reply...

Some of these are not going to be an issue for most people, but I've tried to look for clearly positive changes and haven't really been able to identify any. Likely most people will run into at least one of these. I wonder still: why in the first place...

c_prompt7• 4 years ago

One random guy's opinion (and a long-time K9 user):

Little UI design changes are NOT what you should be spending time/money on; they are a waste of effort given K9's already strong usability. I acknowledge it's your time/money but this does not make the app any more appealing. I know I sound like a broken record [1] but, at minimum, I believe Thunderbird could take quite a few users (who prefer privacy-focused apps) from both Google and Microsoft (not to mention 3rd-party apps [2] [3] [4]) by integrating functionality at the local level. This would be a considerable (IMO) differentiation in functionality. I will continue to use Outlook until there is a significant justification to switch to Thunderbird. And until "Thunderbird for Android" is significantly differentiated in functionality (i.e., ignoring UI), it will remain branded in my mind as K9.

- Signed: someone who still calls a tall building in Chicago as the Sears Tower

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31728531

[2] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.callicia.b...

[3] https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-us/thunderbird/addon/mypho...

[4] https://generalsync.com/en/

PenguinCoder• 4 years ago

Signed: someone who still calls a tall building in Chicago as the Sears Tower

I think all locals/natives to the 312 and 773 still refer to it as such. Ain't changing!

nicholasjarnold• 4 years ago

confirmed. it's not changing. haven't lived there for a while, but it'll always be the Sears Tower if you ask me.

Obscurity43402• 4 years ago

What flaws are there in K9 that still motivates you to stick to Outlook?

c_prompt7• 4 years ago

I use Outlook on my Windows PC and transfer all personal contacts, calendar entries, tasks, and notes locally. I would love to move to Thunderbird primarily because "Microsoft bad" but then I'd lose my local transfer functionality (not to mention Xobni - which still crashes every-so-often - but the functionality is worth it).

criddell2• 4 years ago

K9 doesn’t support modern authentication.

ilyt2• 4 years ago

"But we hired designers and if we don't make small design changes they'd be out of work"

Seriously that's how most of the UI trends feel like

snthd• 4 years ago

Would JMAP not be a better focus both in general, and to attract those same users?

https://github.com/thundernest/k-9/issues/3272

commandersaki• 4 years ago

There’s only one significant mail provider that supports JMAP.

orra2• 4 years ago

Little UI design changes are NOT what you should be spending time/money on; they are a waste of effort given K9's already strong usability

I'm going to go out on a limb and disagree. I left K-9 ages ago, because unfortunately for ages it had no Material Design.

These upcoming changes are a modernisation. That's good for mass appeal. Mass users don't want an app which looks antiquated.

handedness• 4 years ago

On the other hand, I can't imagine leaving an app for that reason.

As one who fairly loathes Material Design (especially on mobile), I was hoping cketti would fix what's wrong with Thunderbird, rather than Thunderbird ruining the best Android email client out there, which is now looking like an almost certainty.

I really hope there's a good fork.

climb_stealth• 4 years ago

For what it's worth I tried K9 in the past and ended up not using it because it was somewhat clunky and ugly.

So here's one potential user who would welcome a more modern interface.

codethief• 4 years ago

I left K-9 ages ago, because unfortunately for ages it had no Material Design.

Maybe you should give it another shot – they changed the UI quite recently (a year ago?)

bayindirh• 4 years ago

That's good for mass appeal. Mass users don't want an app which looks antiquated.

That's pretty spot on. Another example is Eclipse. I swear by it, and it handles everything for me. But when I show it to someone the first question is when did it last updated, because it looks very old.

Eclipse releases a new version every three months.

lelandfe3• 4 years ago

Little UI design changes are NOT what you should be spending time/money on; they are a waste of effort given K9's already strong usability

"This rotary phone in the office is perfectly fine and usable! The new-hires just need to learn how it works, and then it's the exact same thing."

tmtvl2• 4 years ago

Learn how it works? It's a rotary phone! Just turn the disk the appropriate amount for the number you're dialing and loose. You could train a chimpanzee to do that.

worble2• 4 years ago

What's wrong with rotary phones, other than being different to the current norm?

assttoasstmgr• 4 years ago

I'd wager that rotary phone can dial 911 unlike a Google Pixel.

Constantly evolving UI thought experiments are largely responsible for the sorry state of software today.

Maybe the new-hires need a healthy dose of shut-up-and-listen, and do need to learn how it works.

kevincox• 4 years ago

As a short-time K9 user I disagree. You have to pick between the display name and email of senders. There is no way to show both. This is because of problems with the UI design that risks being misleading with malicious names.

The think there are also lots of UX improvements that would be great. Right now the threading UI is awkward. I'm really glad that swipe actions and swiping between messages have landed as well.

I like K9 but I can definitely see the benefit of better UX.

heffer• 4 years ago

I'm mentally preparing for the inevitable "Microsoft Office Ribbons UI"-esque resentments from the power users in the comments.

Give it time.

asdfigadfjinio• 4 years ago

No, I don't think I will give it time. UIs should nearly never be changed. It doesn't matter much whether or not it's an improvement. Don't monkey with other people's tools.

waboremo2• 4 years ago

Whether it's an improvement matters, actually that's explicitly the only point.

Kwpolska• 4 years ago

Should we still be using the Windows 1.0 UI from 1985?

yamtaddle2• 4 years ago

I still hate the ribbons. I go looking in the top "file - edit - view - [...]" menus for things that used to be there, find them absent, and then have to go play Where's Waldo in the damn ribbon. Even in Explorer, these days! And the ribbons themselves just seem like a jumble of button sizes and placement with no rhyme or reason.

MAGZine• 4 years ago

I think they're placed and sized based on frequency of use.

Anyone who thinks file -> print -> page setup is a better place for orientation buttons than the ribbon gets my curmudgeon award.

memling• 4 years ago

I go looking in the top "file - edit - view - [...]" menus for things that used to be there, find them absent, and then have to go play Where's Waldo in the damn ribbon.

My experience in Word improved dramatically the day I learned the Alt-Q shortcut for just asking for what I want instead of combing through endless menus.

arendtio2• 4 years ago

Reading about a Thunderbird version for Android got me exited, because I am a big fan of the desktop version (actually, I donated a few bucks this week). However, on Android I used K9 for years, until I noticed how unreliable it became. I switched to Outlook and it is okay.

When I saw that the Thunderbird app will be based on K9, the excitement vanished instantly. I really hope they will invest into the reliability issues. Judging from the play store comments, it could be worth it.

tecleandor2• 4 years ago

I don't know when you used K9 for the last time, but it has improved in stability greatly in the last ~two years. It's true that some years ago it went downhill for a while.

arendtio2• 4 years ago

In August I switched to Outlook.

By the way, the desktop version of Thunderbird just brought me back to this conversation.

nolls• 4 years ago

If you’re going to use stock pictures to demo your interface at least make sure that they match the sex of the name…

DoctorOW• 4 years ago

Where does it say the sex of the people in the images?

nirimda4• 4 years ago

I think it's a weird objection because it's a work of fiction whose content is irrelevant, but the post-revamp screenshot has an email from "Alessandro" but an feminine-looking avatar, and there's the keys for a "Darlene" who looks masculine and a Armando/herman who also looks feminine. Most of us can smell a random record constructor when we're near one but apparently not everyone.

ilyt2• 4 years ago

It’s clean and readable, but we can do more to help you stay organized and to highlight key information at a glance.

proceeds to remove content from the screen

shoves "show image" in the middle instead of leaving that space for actual message content

Seriously, it looks like they just copied how GMail on mobile looks but badly* and with more wasted space

Zuiii• 4 years ago

This isn't about thunderbird specifically but I can't understand why companies keep making this mistake. They (1) mistake removing legitimately useful (sometimes even critical) features for "simplicity", and (2) copy their competitors, often badly. They also never seem to properly think out or test there changes first.

Can't they understand that people will just use their competitors because they can no longer use their app thanks to (1) or because they no longer have a reason to (2).

Mozilla fell for this. Gnome fell for this. Is it really all for the sake of maintainability? At what cost?! I just don't understand it. Can someone explain?

Edit: Just looked at TFA. At least the author seems open to user suggestions and feedback. That's much more than what other projects are willing to do.

dhdhhdd2• 4 years ago

On my device, when the email fails to send, it gets stuck in an outbox, and no magic incantation is able to retry it.

The only thing that worked was to move the email from outbox to drafts (by editing it) and then sending again.

I wish this got fixed :-)

tecleandor2• 4 years ago

I've seen something similar happen when I answer to an email address that's not configured.

Let me explain better:

  - In K9 I only have configured to receive and send from my main address. Let's say it's 'main@domain.com'
  - I have several different addresses to my main address. Again, let's say it's 'secondary@domain.com.'
  - If I receive one of those forwarded emails and reply to it, in the FROM you'll find 'secondary@domain.com'
  - It will go to the outbox, but never get sent... but without any error. So you never know it wasn't get sent unless you check the outbox, and you won't know the reason.

I guess it's because there's no outgoing email profile for secondary@domain.com and it's lacking some sort of error management for that.

dhdhhdd2• 4 years ago

Interesting!

In my case the error is actually shown. E.g. DNS error when on crappy wifi or even without network.

But then when i connect to a better network, it doesn't get sent.

brnt• 4 years ago

I can never get K9 to send email unless I manually sync right after. Some not very useful error pops up, then one sees the mail still in outbox, and the solution is a refresh.

Wish that would be fixed as well ;)

zmk5• 4 years ago

Kudos to the team. Looks great from the preview. I hope there is an iOS version in the works. I would love to use this on my iPhone instead of the default mail app.

quasarj• 4 years ago

We need Exchange support, not whatever this is

egberts15• 4 years ago

Any mail client (web, mobile, or desktop) that does NOT display the fully-qualified email address (FQEM) next to the "UTF-8" fancy name gets a hard PASS from me.

Such FQEM should ALWAYS display the fully-qualified email address.

I am looking at all the email clients so far. (Please correct me as I would love to be slightly wrong).

I think I can safely speak for all tired people that we are tired of spam.

lucb1e2• 4 years ago

This sounds like the type of thing FairEmail might have as an option. You could also have your email server change the fancy name to an ascii name so any client would display that.

aidenn02• 4 years ago

FairEmail has this option under Display -> Show names and email addresses

By default it's names only for the compact header, but if you expand the header (little down arrow at bottom of header) it shows both.

ketzu• 4 years ago

Is the "FQEM" the punycode version to prevent visual domain collisions?

I am asking, because "fully-qualified email address" is unknown to google, the only result mentioning it on ddg is Bookshelf documentation by Oracle: https://docs.oracle.com/cd/B40099_02/books/SSSE/SSSE_Configu... and that was utterly useless.

All results I checked are about fully-qualified domain names. Alternativley, is a FQEM one that uses a FQDN?

egberts15• 4 years ago

It is a new acronym term in attempt to break free of the spam industry stranglehold on spam.

You should also know who you are getting your email from instead of trusting other people putting in "their" name in the encoded-words (outside its addr-spec).

https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2047

indymike• 4 years ago

Here are three killer features that would be a much better use of design/developer time:

* Give me a way to filter email based on the ORIGINATING SERVER, not the advertised one. I.e. give me a way to filter stuff coming from from bunchofalphanum.something.else.salesforce.com that is relayed for somedomain.com with good domainkeys << This will make email useful again.

* Give me a way to quickly unsubscribe from marketing emails in the email list view. (last I looked couldn't do that in K9 or TB for android)

* Give me a really nice threaded view with my responses inline inbound messages as an option.

ponytech2• 4 years ago

I am a Thunderbird user on desktop but I had been using Blue Mail on Android for several years and had been pretty happy with it. I may switch to Thunderbird when they have the sync feature implemented.

lucb1e2• 4 years ago

K9 already exists today if you want to switch which is "thunderbird for android" with a different name, but what do you mean with sync feature? That it shows notifications, or fetches all your email for offline reading or so?

NoboruWataya• 4 years ago

I assume it's a reference to https://developer.thunderbird.net/planning/roadmap#firefox-s...

Basically, Firefox Sync allows you to sync certain things across your devices (bookmarks, tabs, etc) and they are going to implement similar functionality in Thunderbird.

dilawar• 4 years ago

I used blue mail for years and recommended it to my wife and some of her friends. Everyone likes it. I, however, moved to fairmail and been very happy with it. Reason: its foss and much better than k9. Have a look at its feature set and UI.

black_puppydog• 4 years ago

If you're into the idea of thunderbird on android then you'll be delighted to hear that Mozilla seem to be hiring for this work. I have no affiliation with them, just thought some in the crowd here might be interested. :)

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/careers/position/gh/4704240/

jacobsenscott• 4 years ago

They forgot to list the salary range.

nokya• 4 years ago

If k9 ends up with a search function that works as intended, I'm all for it!

nirimda4• 4 years ago

Oh! I am glad I'm not the only one who has a problem with its search. I wish it would just make it easy to send a search to the remote server instead of hiding it behind so many layers of complexity. If it's a deliberate feature to avoid sending the query to several servers and leaking private info to server admins via the search feature, I think they could make it easy so that there was always the "send query to server" button that brings up a list of accounts that you can send the query to, instead of only making it visible when there's a single account in context (and then only when it doesn't feel like being buggy).

jacooper• 4 years ago

Finally, K9 along with desktop Thunderbird really need a redesign,

hilbert42• 4 years ago

- No way of setting up Thunderbird mail folders, one cannot put mail onto SD card as the default.

- Where's all the options such as leaving mail on the (POP) server?

- When in Manual setup K-9/Thunderbird downloaded mail before I had a chance to select never in accessing mail. Doesn't manual mean just that?

- K-9/Thunderbird wants to sync things by default. Can't people at Mozilla realize that the main reason for using this package is that we do not want a repeat/rehash of Gmail! In simple English that means:

We want nothing to do with Google in anyway whatsoever!

Moreover, on some of my rooted phones there are no Google apps—not even their non-spying equivalents such GApps or MicroG which means the mailer must work all by itself as on the PC. It's people like me who will use K-9/Thunderbird, the great unwashed will nearly always continue to use Gmail, so there is little point in developing an email client for Android unless it significantly differentiates itself from the default Gmail.

- K-9/Thunderbird assumes one will give it access to one's contacts (I don't), it has no alternative to Android Contacts. Why doesn't it have its own address book? It's really annoying when it nags about not having access to Contacts. Other privacy-focused Android apps use both Google's and their own address repositories, so why not K-9/Thunbderbird?

- The editor in Thunderbird for the PC sucks big-time (I've whinged about this for years), this one in K-9/Thunderbird could hardly even be called an editor, it's only really an SMS messenger text handler it's so primitive. I know, many just want a basic or ASCII-like text editor—and it seems so do Thunderbird's developers (developers you are developing for others not just yourselves). Remember also that Android encompasses more than just smartphones, tables etc. which I use with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse (K-9/Thunderbird under these circumstances looks and works like something out of the Dark Ages)!

If you cannot fix the editor then allow users to use an external one!

- Where's the multiple accounts setup (if it's there then Mozilla you've done a good job at hiding it)?

Three days ago I had to set up Thunderbird for the PC Windows on a new laptop and it was a damn time-consuming pain. Transferring email from one PC installation to another is something that obviously Thunderbird developers never do (probably because they're all using Gmail and The Cloud on their phones, thus they never have to bother). To make matters worse, I've promised to do the same for a colleague who cannot do so and I'm dreading the fact.

To put this K-9/Thunderbird offering into perspective, it's worth considering what is wrong with the PC version—and here I'm not talking about some old version but the latest 102.5.0 and current beta 108b2. That's a tall ask because it'd take many, many pages to describe the problems adequately, so I'll just outline a couple problems that bug me and others (common ones collected from help desk logs, etc.).

- Thunderbird, like Firefox, has made a reputation for busting add-ons/plug-ins; every new version busts something, and it's invariably done in the name of security. Instead, of Thunderbird's developers either sandboxing add-ons or provide an option 'add this add-on at your own risk', they take the approach of an authoritarian dictator and simply kill any of them that doesn't take their fancy—then, as so often happens—the only plug-in that does a specific job no longer works (this is yet another example of why software development can't rightfully be classed as true engineering—real engineers don't take away, say, steps from a building after installation so people cannot use it!).

What developers of both Thunderbird and Firefox forget is that the main reason why users install add-ons to these programs is to overcome basic and often very fundamental limitations in their design in that they are missing when they ought not be, these fixes are often considered essential to users often more so than than security considerations/fixes (it's certainly so with me). We find it very annoying when some important feature goes missing in an upgrade. Furthermore, Mozilla developers rarely bother to placate irate users, their arrogant 'it's-free-so-don't-bother-us-with-your-problems' attitude means one doesn't even get a hearing when one complains.

- Thunderbird has a 'feature' that allows the user to change or add profiles called profilemanager. You'll never find it in the menus because it's just not there. Instead, after searching or fossicking around on the web you'll find that this cryptic, poorly-explained feature can only be reached from a 'switch' on the Command Line—yes you read correctly the Command Line! Until recently, if you deleted an old profile then you also deleted your mail files folder and even now it's still quite possible to do because it's a horrible, ergonomically unsound, bit of afterthought coding that's hung around like a bad smell for years (yes, like other boring but essential bits of Thunderbird it's not been fashionable enough to re-code and or fix it).

The ergonomics of Thunderbird's profilemanager is so terrible that I'd like to see the culprit(s) in the stocks for a few days so everyone got to know those who make a crime out of coding. All future versions of their CVs with the fact compulsorily entered therein would round it off. The profilemanager only does part of the job, one has to go into the Accounts management and manually patch the directory where one's mail is located (that is unless it's in the default location). Anyone who has to set up multiple accounts and has to have the mail on different drives and or in different directories can spend hours trying to sort out the many problems. Multiple accounts are all jumbled up in the prefs.js file, and just looking at it one can immediately see adding multiple accounts was also an afterthought. The obvious thing to do would have been to separate these accounts into separate files then one could move them about to different machines etc.—even for maintenance it would save a great amount of time.

Looking at the 'time modified' timestamp on my files I note that it took me 7 hours and five minutes to reinstall the accounts on the new machine (BTW, there are only four accounts involved, I didn't have time to do them all at the time).

- Much time is wasted installing Thunderbird because developers think it's a good idea to ensure that you cannot set up mail offline! If you want to set up mail manually, and you have all the server parameters tough luck—you have to have an internet connection. Yes, I know mail setups have to be completed online but if one could set up the mail account offline beforehand then it'd be only a click or two when one went online. The question is why hasn't this nonsense been fixed years ago.

- Moreover that first account becomes the main account and heads the tree whether you like it or not (as it's the first account it's likely to be used more often and likely mistaken (very problematic if one gets one's work and home accounts mixed up)). The only way I know to change it is to set up the main account then 'nuke' it later. After checking that the account works shut down Thunderbird and edit the prefs.js file with dummy information (it's tedious as there are multiple entries). The dummy account I created is no.mail@default.nul. After that recreate the original account, it will now be further down the tree. If there'd been a competition to make it harder for the user then Thunderbird developers would have had difficulty beating their efforts with such stupid shenanigans as we've seen here. To put it bluntly, Thunderbird's ergonomics and program design is a fucking shambles and no amount of dressing it up with new features will fix it. What's needed are bugs and limitations fixed first.

One quick point to finish: the mail editing window cannot be docked with the main window. Why the hell not? If this is considered undesirable then just have it as an option for those who want it.

There's so much wrong with Thunderbird that I sometimes wonder if Microsoft employees are working for Mozilla as Trojan horses! What better way to bring open software into disrepute. And the proof's seems to be in the pudding: in recent years with Mozilla developers doing what they damn-well please instead of fixing bugs and boring but necessary work, it's little wonder Mozilla has fallen from grace.

Many others and I would be very happy if Mozilla offloaded Thunderbird onto others—those who know what they're doing and who actually understand what users want from a modern email client.

toastal• 4 years ago

If Thunderbird is replacing K9, it better remain on F-Droid. Mozilla doesn't publish or optimize officials browser builds there so they can end up lagging on release which can cause security concerns.

Fire-Dragon-DoL• 4 years ago

Well, I'm hopeful!

An Android client is what I've been missing to jump off of Gmail.

I keep asking for something open source with the snooze button, it seems impossible to have though.

w-hn2• 4 years ago

Wish there was something even remotely close to K9 or Thunderbird was available for iOS.

I would love to have K9+Thunderbird on iOS as a paid open source app. None of the iOS mail clients offer anything other than the surface pretties

One feature I need badly is ability to set any username on my domain. Catch all works fine but without the ability to send emails as a reverse “catch all” the feature and fight against spam often falls flat. (I think only Fastmail client has that option but then it will be another provider specific mail client)

pleb_nz• 4 years ago

I went to try it today and one of the first messages is we don't play nice with some MS services.

Well that must make it hard for a bunch of people.

grodes• 4 years ago

modern? it looks dated

throwaway67743• 4 years ago

Fairemail is consistently better in every regard than K9 and I don't think the people that brought us the thunderbird desktop monstrosity are in a position to be deciding changes to an at least mostly usable client.

Thunderbird for Android preview: Modern message redesign

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