MZLA Technologies Corporation recently released Thunderbird 102. The new version of the open source e-mail client brings many new features and should soon be released as an automatic update for Thunderbird 91 users.
New version available for download, updates coming soon
Thunderbird 102 has been up for a few weeks to download ready. This article is deliberately published only now, as an update was not immediately recommended due to a few minor but significant problems. Thunderbird 91 automatic updates are not active at this time. After three bugfix updates for Thunderbird 102 have now been published, users of Thunderbird 91 shouldn’t have to wait long for the update to be activated.
What’s new in Thunderbird 102
New icons and customizable sidebar
The most noticeable change following the launch of Thunderbird are of course the design changes. Numerous icons have been renewed, the ones in the folder list are now even colorful, and there is a new sidebar on the left side, which allows you to switch between the various components e-mails, address book, calendar, tasks and chat. So-called MailExtensions can also expand this bar. The user can not only hide the bar if desired, the colors can also be adjusted by the user as desired.
And that’s just a foretaste of Thunderbird 114 in the coming year. Because then Thunderbird should shine in a whole new light and get even more customization options.
Customizable message header
New options for customization is also the keyword for the message header, which has received several options for customization, including the option to display buttons as usual with icon and text, only with icon or only as text. Other options include showing a profile picture for the sender, enlarging the subject line, hiding the caption line, and always showing the sender’s full address. In addition, an e-mail can now also be marked with a star symbol via the message header.
New address book
Desired by Thunderbird users for many years, it’s finally here: A new address book. The new address book, which now opens in a tab instead of a separate window, appears tidier and is compatible with the vCard specification, the industry standard for storing contacts. This allows easy import of contacts from other applications that can export vCards.
New wizard for import and export
Thunderbird includes a new wizard for importing and exporting accounts, messages, address books, and settings, which supports not only other Thunderbird installations, but also other email clients such as SeaMonkey, Outlook, and Apple Mail, as well as importing from a Thunderbird-exported Zip – File supported.
Chat now also understands Matrix
The chat function now also supports the open and decentralized chat protocol Matrix, which is becoming increasingly popular.
And a lot more…
This was just a small selection of the biggest highlights of Thunderbird 102. In addition, there were numerous other innovations, improvements and bug fixes, which are reflected in the Release Notes (engl.) read up. And of course various security gaps have been closed once more.
The updates that have since been released on Thunderbird 102.0.1, Thunderbird 102.0.2 such as Thunderbird 102.0.3 fixed the biggest issues since Thunderbird 102 was released.
