Thunderbird 140 “Eclipse”

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Overall sentiment & adoption

  • Many are glad Thunderbird is actively developed again and are trying 140 “Eclipse” or returning after years away.
  • Others say they’ve repeatedly tried Thunderbird over 10–20 years but always abandon it due to sluggish UI, crashes, phantom unread mail, or rough edges in everyday use.

Sync, configuration, and multi-device use

  • A major complaint: no built‑in settings/profile sync across machines.
  • Users juggling several PCs want accounts, identities, signatures, and folder settings synced, not just IMAP mail.
  • Current workarounds: treating the profile as “dotfiles” and syncing via Syncthing, or exporting/importing profiles (reported as fragile, especially with large profiles).

UI/UX changes, search, and compose experience

  • Recent UI changes (Supernova, Windows‑11‑style context menus, dual search boxes, vertical toolbar) are widely criticized as cluttered, confusing, and wasting vertical space.
  • Search is a major pain point: reports of poor relevance, inability to search exact words, stemming issues, and performance problems with large folders. Some resort to server-side search, grep, or external search engines.
  • Compose window is described as buggy and inconsistent (text styles resetting, odd spacing).
  • Some praise incremental fixes (e.g., manual folder sorting built in, better defaults), but note they arrived very late.

Reliability & critical data-loss bug

  • A long, heated subthread discusses a 17‑year‑old bug where moving/copying IMAP messages to local folders can corrupt or delete mail on both client and server.
  • Some say this alone makes Thunderbird unusable; others report decades of use without ever seeing it.
  • Debate centers on how to handle severe but rare, hard‑to‑reproduce bugs:
    • One side: “non‑reproducible ⇒ can’t fix” is unacceptable; add defensive checks, logging, and guardrails (e.g., verify copies before deletion, keep restorable backups, or disable risky operations).
    • Other side: without reproduction, you can’t be sure any change actually fixes this bug, so it stays open; they argue developers have implemented related mitigations but can’t safely close the ticket.
  • Several commenters argue Thunderbird should at least warn users or turn off the dangerous move‑to‑local feature until it’s demonstrably safe.

Protocols, enterprise features & auth

  • Users ask about O365/OAuth with Okta + hardware keys; current status appears incomplete, with suggested third‑party proxies as workarounds.
  • Experimental native Exchange support is welcomed but some find it surprisingly late.
  • JMAP support is asked about but not answered in the thread.

Calendars, dark mode, and accessibility

  • Multi‑week calendar view is praised as uniquely useful; others highlight missing basics like robust multi‑time‑zone support.
  • Dark‑mode improvements for message reading are appreciated, but a side discussion notes dark themes can harm readability for people with astigmatism or other visual issues; both light and dark options are needed.

Alternatives, forks & ecosystem

  • Alternatives mentioned: Spark, Apple Mail, Outlook, MailMate, Fastmail web UI, Mimestream, Marco (a new cross‑platform client), K‑9/Android, Betterbird, Epyrus, Seamonkey.
  • Some left Thunderbird for these due to stability, UX, or enterprise integration; others ended up on Thunderbird because other clients (especially webmail) were worse for filters, tagging, or multi‑account use.
  • Betterbird and other forks are used to regain features like system tray/minimize‑to‑tray on Linux, though packaging and governance issues (e.g., nixpkgs delisting) are noted.

Marketing, releases & project direction

  • Several dislike the abstract marketing graphics and absence of real screenshots; they interpret that as lack of confidence in the UI.
  • Manual folder sorting is advertised as a headline feature; some see this as emblematic of slow progress on basic functionality.
  • Confusion over “now you can get monthly features with the same stability” messaging: non‑ESR releases have always existed, and some value ESR precisely because it changes slowly.