this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2025
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I've never heard of anyone using Thunderbird, but I hear about other Firefox users all the time.

I want a new email place. FUCK GMAIL πŸ’₯ FUCK GOOGLE! I had to use MS Office for work once, it was okay. Better than Gmail by a mile. But you seriously think I'm gonna use Microsoft? Well, what else is there? If Thunderbird is alright I think I should give it a try.

I also need to find a way to make a new not-gmail email domain. No idea where to go for that. Uh, does Thunderbird have anything?

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 19 hours ago

thunderbird is great. no complaints here. good to have your own offline copy and also to use openpgp implementation.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 20 hours ago

there are email clients, and there are email providers. thunderbird is an ok client.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

It's used in company I work in. It's pretty solid, given how much data it has to work with, although it's a bit slow. But that's probably combination of shitty workstation, huuuuge inbox, shitty local mail provider and pretty slow internet speeds...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 19 hours ago

I have a good computer with a mid size inbox (too lazy to delete), fast internet, and like 4 different mail providers.

It's still slow. I don't hate it though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

It slows down when you have tens of thousands of emails in one folder. Archiving old emails by month helps keep it running smoothly. For some reason, it won't let you do that with gmail accounts unless you archive to a local folder though.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 20 hours ago

You don't want to know how that mail abomination is set up here... Archiving? Blasphemy!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

It's my daily driver for email, and biggest complaint is I don't know how to change the date format to not be super confusing. I've tried using it for RSS and chats too, but hasn't really stuck for some reason or other. Great for managing multiple emails, though.

I use Fairmail on my phone.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago

It's been my daily client for probably 20 years now. My IMAP email account is around 80GB and it has no issues with that whatsoever.

Never understood how people use Outlook. It's so obnoxious and slow by comparison. To obsessed with a "modern UI" or whatever I guess.

Quick filter is amazing, as is instantly archiving to year/month subdirectories.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

I use it, and have for decades. It's wonderful and it just keeps getting better. Buy you own domain name, and a mail-hotel... Then you are good to go.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago

it's awesome, i've been using it for like 20(?) years.

the current beta version is great

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

It's pretty good, but I use SeaMonkey since it feels more lightweight

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago

I use it daily it works fine.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I use it as a client for a company gmail account and as an rss reader. In my opinion, it's fine. Not great, but not bad either.

The biggest pro it has for me is functionality. Mail, calendar, RSS feed reader,.. maybe even more that I do not use myself. And all of that for free.

On the downsides, I'm not a fan of the design, it feels pretty dated to me. Same goes for the UX, just navigating around gives me some 20-years-ago vibes. But that might just be my personal interpretation.

After all, it's still miles better than outlook and their "over 700 third parties" carefully watching over your mails together with you. And since it is free, why not give it a try and see for yourself?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I'm confused, Outlook has 700 third parties but you're using gmail?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Company gmail, yeah. Like, the company pays for google services and mail is one of them, which I am required to use. For my personal mail, I am a very satisfied tuta customer.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

We are using Thunderbird for AGES. We basically switched over from the original "Mozilla Mail" client that we had used before, and don't ask what we used before that...

But we always had our own email addresses since the 1990s, and our own domain since the 2000s.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago

I daily use it for work. It's great.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Thunderbird is fine as a mail client. It doesn’t provide any email service, though.

For email service, Proton and Fastmail are top choices. Proton requires a β€œbridge” app in order to use clients like Thunderbird. On mobile, Proton only works via the Proton app.

As for clients, again, Thunderbird is fine. Betterbird is a better choice if you like Thunderbird but wish it weren’t so rough around the edges. If you are on Linux, I actually prefer Evolution to Betterbird/Thunderbird.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

They will soon be an email service provider! https://thundermail.com/

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

I'm using Betterbird, it's Thunderbird but more polished. Highly recommend it

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

I have thunderbird running in a docker container so I can use it from any computer I am on at that moment. It dose what I need.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I have it on my desktop, but rarely use email there. My phone uses K9, which is actually now Thunderbird also πŸ₯Έ

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

I've read about K-9 becoming Thunderbird on smartphones but mine still says K-9.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

It still works very well and I dare say it is one of the best email clients we have today. For both Windows and Linux.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

Thunderbird is excellent

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

it just works

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Sad it's still not available on iOS yet...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

I’m using Thunderbird. It’s convenient for having multiple inboxes and has a subjectively nice interface without much bloat on it. It has a calendar app which is good for planning too. For email, I have a custom domain+TLD plus an account at purelymail. If purelymail goes dicks up I’m not dead in the water.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

I use Thunderbird on desktop and mobile

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

It's my default email manager. There isn't a single thing I can't do with it, whether it's the default version, the improved Betterbird version, or extensions like those on the Firefox browser.

For example, message filters – not yet available on Android because their takeover of K9 Mail is too "recent" – but super useful for sorting emails into the right folder.

With Filtquila, Regex lets me boost that, and Betterbird also lets me remove emails containing any elements (attachments, subject, etc.) from the search, which I also do in classic Thunderbird.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Thunderbird will be releasing a mail service called Thundermail.

https://blog.thunderbird.net/2025/04/thundermail-and-thunderbird-pro-services/

If you ending up needing a mail client like Thunderbird, consider Betterbird. It's just a more-polished version of Thunderbird.

https://betterbird.eu/

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

That's incredible. I wonder how long it will take. Sounds like swapping to Thunderbird now on my existing email accounts is the move. I'll get used to the client then create the new email once they launch theirs. Beats paying for my own domain or locking in to Proton/Tuta

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

tbh I haven't used an email client that wasn't just a web interface for my personal email since like 2004. I only use one at work because we're a Microsoft shop with Outlook/Exchange/etc.

Proton Mail is my choice for an actual email service.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

If you want a client to view your Google or Outlook emails, Thunderbird is excellent.

If you want a new email that's worth switching to, go for Proton Mail or Tuta Mail. Both are encrypted for your copy of the messages.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

We used it to read old Outlook backups at my previous employer. Haven’t used it as an active client.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago

I use betterbird

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Thunderbird is great if you like using an email client that looks like its user interface was designed in 1996.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago

I'll take that design over basically any email client designed since

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago

I use Thunderbird for a decade, not sure maybe less, but it feels like a long time. I use Thunderbird exclusively for mail. But feels like this is the wrong place to ask, isn't it?

Also Thunderbird is Mozilla's most successful product. Meaning it is self sustainable.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 day ago

Yeah, thunderbird is solid as an email client. Can't really think of anything I need to do with email that it can't do

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

ProtonMail is fine but not super compatible with Thunderbird. Thunderbird is an email client, which can be used to connect to email services, but it's not a service itself like Microsoft or Google offers

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah, anyone looking to try Protonmail should be aware of how lock-in it can be if you're on the free account. Maybe things have changed since, but I couldn't set up email forwarding or bring my own client, and only noticed it when I was about to change provider.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's like TutaMail (formerly Tutanota) – their security is such that it does not allow access by third-party clients. However, there are Thunderbird extensions that allow you to open a kind of web page in Thunderbird.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Paying customers can install a protocol bridge between Proton and regular mail client. This does break the security of local storage as TB doesn’t supply any.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Thunderbird I use each day on my Linux desktop. It’s ok, better than the others I tried.

I have different email addresses I manage.

There are probably dozens of ways to create a non Gmail email, depending on your tech level with domains.

If you want a custom domain, just purchase one at any domain seller. Example liner.me , limer.name etc, there are dozens of things you can choose from and will cost very little to a lot depending on your choice.

Then once you have that , most of the major domain providers offer email service without getting complicated. Or, you can go next level and take your new domain to one of many email companies where they hook you up. Or, you can do this yourself.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (2 children)

If you buy your own domain, you can connect it to an account like Proton or Tuta, making your personal email a little more portable. Last I checked, .nl domains were like $6 or $7 per year on Namecheap. And I'm pretty sure you can link both Proton and Tuta to a Thunderbird client if you really want to. You may need a paid account with the email provider if you want to link a custom domain, I can't recall offhand.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Proton Mail kind of supports Thunderbird on their paid plans by using the bridge which acts as a local mail server which can then be used in Thunderbird. Tuta does not support Thunderbird at all. Lock-in is the biggest downside of these encrypted email providers.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Ah ok thank you, I have the paid Proton so I had a feeling there were complications outside that space but wasn't sure

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

It's like TutaMail (formerly Tutanota) – their security is such that it does not allow access by third-party clients. However, there are Thunderbird extensions that allow you to open a kind of web page in Thunderbird.

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