Mozilla Thunderbird for Android is now available in beta, built upon the K-9 Mail app.

The beta includes core email features like account setup, email organization, and notifications, with feedback encouraged from users.

Thunderbird for Android will remain a separate app from K-9 Mail, requiring users to migrate if they previously used K-9.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    143 hours ago

    For anyone who was using K-9 wondering why Thunderbird looks no different, it’s because they aren’t different.

    They build both apps from the exact same codebase. Only difference between the two are the default color scheme, the branding icons, and the text strings of the application’s name. It’s literally just a choice of which brand skin you prefer.

    Which, honestly, kinda cool. A virtually zero-cost way to keep a few K-9 stans happy.

    • Lucy :3
      link
      fedilink
      13 hours ago

      As long as it’s compliant with Thunderbird, eg. using the same autoconfig at /mail/config-v1.1.xml, I’m happy.

      • Ephera
        link
        fedilink
        118 minutes ago

        I cannot imagine that it would support that. Android generally does not give its users root access…

    • @woelkchen
      link
      334 minutes ago

      Won’t appear. Mozilla is a bitch about trademarks.

      • Ephera
        link
        fedilink
        213 minutes ago

        Well, an unbranded build would be perfectly possible, like how “Fennec” is just a build of Firefox. In case they continue to release updates for K-9, that would be an unbranded app right there…

  • @scrion
    link
    85 hours ago

    Honestly, if you’re in the audience for Thunderbird on Android, you probably want to have a look at FairMail instead.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        125 minutes ago

        I love FairEmail’s simplified mail viewer that doesn’t render HTML mails completely and they look more like an enhanced plain text mail instead.

      • johant
        link
        fedilink
        33 hours ago

        I’d say customizability. Haven’t used k-9 since I found FairEmail so can’t really say anything about how it is now but it used to be pretty bare bones. At least compared to FairEmail.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        03 hours ago

        They have a desktop for Linux??? I’ve been using it for years and I only get to learn this now! I’m going to try it immediately lmao. Thank you!!

  • Jeena
    link
    fedilink
    English
    105 hours ago

    OK, I switched. I don’t know if it’s a placebo because it looks identical but ut feels smoother.

    • Cris
      link
      English
      95 hours ago

      For me it definitely looks different, are you sure you have the new version…? They’ve updated a lot of the UI elements to material design 3, but kept all the same layout and whatnot

      I really like it so far! Feels like a really welcome refresh

  • rhys
    link
    fedilink
    English
    14 hours ago

    Nice to see progress, but so far it seems indistinguishable from K-9.

    The feature to import settings from K-9 doesn’t work for me, possibly as a consequence of running CalyxOS.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      23 hours ago

      I’m interested in Thunderbird but I’ve been very happy with aquamail, so no reason to switch