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Mozilla Thunderbird for Android is Almost Ready After 2 Years

The beta release for Thunderbird's Android app is here, with the stable version scheduled to arrive at the end of October.

Quick recap: It has been more than two years since K-9 Mail (an open-source email client for Android) joined the Mozilla Thunderbird project.

Instead of making a new mobile app from scratch, Mozilla decided to convert K-9 Mail slowly into the new Thunderbird Android app.

While we have known about it for some time now, we finally have something to test: Thunderbird for Android (Beta).

Mozilla is looking for users to test it and plans a stable release at the end of October.

Thunderbird App for Android: Help Test It!

The new Thunderbird app is now available on the Play Store as a beta version for user testing.

So, we are closer to the stable launch than ever before 🥳

I installed the app on my Android device, and here's how it looks:

thunderbird android app beta screenshots

If you have a custom domain, you need to manually configure it, and if you have a Gmail account, you can easily sign in through the email provider. The integration for Gmail is a good addition, considering it would be the most-used option for Android users.

Once you log in, you set up the frequency to check for new emails, and give the necessary permissions like notifications to get alerts for emails.

You get import/export options with K9s file format, and the essentials to tweak your experience.

For the functionality side, you can expect things like light/dark theme, email signature, unified inbox, ability to enable/disable contact pictures, threaded view, and opt out of data usage collection for privacy.

Of course, it is a beta version meant for testing. So, you can expect bugs.

And, if you want to participate in the testing process and submit feedback/report on your findings, you might want to go through Mozilla's blog post on what to test (and how to report it).

💬 What do you think about Thunderbird on Android? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!


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