A major update to the open-source e-mail client Thunderbird is now available to download.
Thunderbird 128 ‘Nebula’ builds on last year’s stellar Thunderbird 115 release, adding a flurry of new features, code improvements, and a grab bag of assorted bug fixes.
Plus, like the recent Firefox 128 release, this version of Thunderbird is an Extended Support Release (ESR). Kind of like an LTS, ESR commits to several years of continued updates and support. Linux distros which rely on ESR builds, like Debian, can update to this version.
Support period aside, there’s plenty of tangible changes tucked up inside of Thunderbird 128. With my preamble done, let’s get to gawking at it all…
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Thunderbird 128 New Features
Thunderbird 115 brought a number of modern UI changes with it, including a new ‘cards’ view for messages.
Thunderbird 128 improves the look of the cards, making them nicer to look and interact with, and easier to draw information from by scanning them. Card height now auto-adjusts based on your preferred UI settings, too.
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Also benefitting from more finesse is the folder pane shown in the sidebar. This is now said to offer ‘faster rendering and searching of unified folders, better recall of message thread states, and multi-folder selection’.
Thunderbird 128 will inherit accent colours on supports system, including Ubuntu and Linux Mint (I haven’t tested on other DEs/distros). Keeping with colours, it’s now possible to set custom accent colours for accounts in the sidebar:
Thunderbird Accent Color Image 1
Thunderbird Accent Color Image 2
I’m also stoked to see that Thunderbird 128 makes ‘newest first’ the default sort order for messages in message list. While some prefer the old way, I always found it strange that the oldest mails were shown first—team reverse chronology, represent!
Thunderbird has long supported multiple accounts, and its unified account feature makes it easier to manage them. In this update, you can now right-click on the “Get Messages” button in the unified toolbar to fetch new messages for a specific account only.
A number of OpenPGP improvements feature in this update. The OpenPGP Key Manager allows creating revocation statements for any secret key; OpenPGP message signatures are now viewable; and it’s possible to change expiration of OpenPGP keys with a “complex” structure.
A warning will be shown if you try to import OpenPGP keys that advertise unsupported features; “Permissive” import of problematic OpenPGP keys is disabled by default; and LibrePGP v5 AEAD/OCB decryption support is also now disabled.
And OpenPGP will no longer try to re-initialize secret key storage if individual OpenPGP secret key passphrases have been turned on.
Oh, and Thunderbird’s built-in address book now uses a card design by default: –
Other new additions/changes in Thunderbird 128: –
- Threaded message views now display a “New Message” count
- Thunderbird Flatpak now supports hardware key multi-factor authentication
- UI density settings now apply to multi-message view
- New preference to display full name and email address of all recipients in message list
- An “Archived-At” message header field is now shown as a link
- ECDH encryption and decryption for S/MIME messages now enabled
- Custom account colours in “From” field when composing a message
- Form validation in manual account configuration
- iCloud contacts and calendar discovery supported
- Improved layout of LDAP address book properties dialog
- Support for native Windows notifications
- Selection indicator added to folder pane and address book pane
See the release notes for more details.
“[Thunderbird 128] ushers in significant improvements to Thunderbird’s code, stability, overall user experience, and the speed at which we can deliver new features to you,” the team say of this release. On my own short hands-on with Thunderbird 128, I’d concur.
Thunderbird 128 is a solid update, and further proof that this e-mail client’s best years lay firmly ahead of it.
Download Thunderbird 128
Eager to try these changes first-hand?
You can download Thunderbird 128 from the official Thunderbird website. Installers and binaries are provided for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Existing users can’t upgrade in-app from Thunderbird 115 to 128 right now, but a future update will enable this.
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS includes Thunderbird as a snap package (default in an expanded install, and installed if you run sudo apt install thunderbird). This will be updated to v128 shortly. Other Linux distros may vary in how, when, or if they package this update.
You can install Thunderbird from Flathub.
Once you’ve had time to take it for a spin be sure to come back and let me know what you think of these changes — and what features you’d like to see it add next!