Mozilla Thunderbird Open-Source Email Client Is Coming to Android Devices

Marius Nestorby Marius Nestor0
Mozilla Thunderbird Android

The Mozilla Thunderbird development team shared today their plans to develop a full-featured email client for Android devices in collaboration with the K-9 Mail Project.

After years of talks, both the Mozilla Thunderbird and K-9 Mail projects have decided to focus their efforts on an improved version of the K-9 Mail open-source Android email app by offering users a better account setup experience using Thunderbird’s account auto-configuration wizard, the ability to sync Thunderbird desktop and mobile apps, support for message filters, and improved folder management.

In time, this work that the developers of the Mozilla Thunderbird and K-9 Mail projects plan to implement in the coming months will transform the existing K-9 Mail app for Android into Thunderbird for Android, in an attempt to offer the Open Source community a more powerful and privacy-respecting email experience on mobile devices.

“In 2018, Christian Ketterer and I started talking about how to collaborate, and that conversation evolved into how to create a great, seamless email experience across platforms that was open source and had our projects’ shared values at its heart,” says Ryan Lee Sipes, Thunderbird Product Manager. “The K-9 Mail project aligns perfectly with Thunderbird’s values of using open standards, respecting the user, and enabling power users with unmatched customization. It made sense to work together instead of developing a mobile client from scratch.”

More details will be provided in the coming months. Meanwhile, if you want to help shape the future of Mozilla Thunderbird’s email client on Android devices, you can start by installing the K-9 Mail client from Google Play Store and test the new features that the developers plan to implement in future versions of the app until this transitions to the Thunderbird for Android app.

The team also revealed plans to offer Firefox Sync to allow users to securely sync their Thunderbird and K-9 Mail accounts, a feature that will be implemented in the summer of 2023. Also, the Mozilla Thunderbird devs are currently evaluating the development of a mobile app for iOS devices, but no details were shared.

Last updated 2 years ago

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