The Mozilla Thunderbird development team has released beta 4 of the upcoming Thunderbird 3 desktop email client. The new version of the popular email client is already available for download at the Mozilla Thunderbird website. Downloads are as usual available for all supported operating systems (Microsoft Windows, Linux and Apple Macintosh) and languages.
The release notes contain a huge list of new features and improvements including a new email search with advanced filtering options, global search with autocomplete, smart folders, tabbed email messages, new add-ons manager, improved address book, better Gmail integration and integration into Windows Vista’s search results.
Improvements have been made to overall performance and stability as well as web compatibility and sustainability. The way IMAP connections are handled has been improved in this version of Thunderbird as well. Thunderbird can now download IMAP messages by default in the background “to allow for faster message loading and better offline operation”.
Users who are interested in the new version can download it from the Mozilla Thunderbird website. The usual precautions should be taken considering that this version is still a beta version that should not be used in a production environment. The full release notes can be accessed at this link.
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41 Responses to “Thunderbird 3 Beta 4 Released”
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[...] Check out the release notes for more details as well as the known issues for a list of reported bugs. Thunderbird is a free download for Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux. Thunderbird 3 Beta 4 [Mozilla via gHacks] [...]
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[...] just earlier, bringing some nice new changes and improvements with it according to the guys over at ghacks. The release brings a few new optimization features, including support for Windows Vista’s [...]
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[...] Fuente: gHacks [...]
The 32-bit version works fine on 64-bit Windows.
This comment was originally posted on Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
I switched back to Thunderbird about a year ago (2.X), but I’m reluctant to trust all my email to "Beta" software. Any comments on stability, ease of upgrade, availability of extensions, etc?
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I lost interest in TB3 when they took Lightning integration off the feature list. I can’t do without Outlook’s e-mail/calendar/task integration.
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The search interface is plain fantastic. Hats off to the Mozilla Messaging guys. It’s good to see Thunderbird back in the game!
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Does it have Windows 7 64bit support?
Cannot really say if they do. There is an unofficial 64-bit download page but that has not been updated yet with the latest version http://wiki.mozilla-x86-64.com/Thunderbird:Download
Thunderbird might be back in the running for me again. I switched to PostBox for better search ability, but am disliking how it handles "default" accounts (in other words, fails to) since the update to 1.0.
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What about organizing contacts. Thats the one reason I look Outlook
I can organize by contacts by categories.
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Nice! I switched back to TB after some months of using postbox, and I don’t regret it.
I like the new search functionality – makes searching much easier…
"Display mail user agent" addon doesn’t work with this update (not even with nightly tester tools) but I guess that it will be fixed soon (I hope)
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Nightlies for Lightning and the Google calendar provider are usefully found @[ftp.mozilla.org]
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I like the way it adds accounts in a faster way (and in a way that certain relatives can set up without asking for help… i hope).
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Everytime I upgrade (not a fresh install, have not tried that yet) from Tbird2 to a beta of Tbird3 (beta 3 and now 4) I cannot open any of the following windows: Address Book, Add-ons, Preferences… probably others too)
This is on OS X 10.5.8.
It wants to index the folders I have, which is ok, but after it stops, and says they are all up to date, it is still using ~30% CPU on each core of my C2D.
If I try to close Tbird, I cannot use the cmd-q option, it does not respond to that. If I try clicking on "Thunderbird" then "quit" it does the same thing. If I goto the dock, and right click the Tbird icon and click quit, it closes like I force quit the application, and when I reopen it, it starts the process over of indexing and what not.
I am going to try to do a "fresh install", but I hate to have to move and recreate my preferences etc. Maybe when I have an hour or so of free time to setup.
Ya, I know I read the known issues, and troubleshooting information on that page, I am simply posting here that you may not be able to simply upgrade without seeing very weird things happen.
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Any idea when proper gmail contact synchronisation will be here? The "google-contacts" plugin is VERY broken to the point of randomly deleting contacts and having a caniption fit over groups that were deleted and re-created.
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Don’t forget:
"Tabbed Email Messages
Double-clicking or hitting enter on a mail message will now open that message in a New Tab window. Middle-clicking on messages or folders will open them in a Tab in the background. When quitting Thunderbird, visible tabs will be saved and will be restored when you open Thunderbird the next time. There is also a new Tab menu on the Tab toolbar to help you switch between Tabs. "
which is what I’m interested in.
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@ckempo: Do they actually work with an iCal server? Not just read – but write too?
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@saffyre9: Could you be more specific about those Postbox issues? I’ve been wondering about whether to check it out. (I’m still using Eudora!)
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What about 64 bit?
I don’t see it here. [wiki.mozilla-x86-64.com]
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Is it any better/different than postbox? Thinking of switching since Postbox is going to go paid.
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Oooh – been running Beta 3 and really really like it so far. I’ll definitely give this a try.
IMAP users: one good reason to download the beta? THEY HAVE A COMPACT BUTTON NOW. I know! ::gaspu!::
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Does it still flash all of your password sign-ins all at once and fail to sign you into your various accounts?
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@Mr_Human: Used to be you could set your default "sending" account from Account settings. Recently they took that button away, and it was which ever account was at the top of your list became the default. Supposedly you could move a different account to the top of the list to make it the default, but that…doesn’t work. You can move the accounts around, it just doesn’t change the default sending account. So I’ve been sending emails from the wrong account for weeks now (unless I remember to change it manually on each message..which I don’t).
Emails sent as replies do send from the account they were sent to, at least.
There’s a thread in their help section of others having the same issue. Supposedly they’re going to "look into it", but something like that is pretty much a deal breaker for me.
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Integration with Gmail is where Thunderbird previously fell short for me, so it’s good to that much improved upon in this beta release. The only disappointment for me (albeit a very minor one), was the missing option to import my settings from Spicebird, but seeing as setting up a Gmail IMAP account in Thunderbird could hardly be a more straightforward process I couldn’t possibly be nit-picky about it.
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@saffyre9: Ugh — that sounds awful. Thanks for the heads up.
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I just switched to Thunderbird the other day, and I am very happy with it. Now I hear that a new version is coming out soon; can’t wait to download it.
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Until Lightning works with it, it is worthless to me. Also, it just seems dumb to bring tabs to desktop email clients. I use Thunderbird 2.0 every day for email, Calendar, and most importantly, news feeds. When I open an article, I want it to pop up in its own dedicated window, rendered as the web page itself, so I can read the article without any visual distractions. You can set it to do that, but it makes the whole tab interface not just pointless, but a visual eyesore.
So with two of the three features that are a requirement broken and fundamentally changed, all that’s left is email. If email was all I wanted, I’d just use the web app.
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Are you thinking of iCalendar? (iCal is an Apple application on the Mac.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICalendar
Sunbird can import iCalendar files, according to Mozilla’s FAQ.
As for calendar sharing …. I know the OASF have tested a number of calendar applications with their server over CalDAV. They say you can "publish" and "subscribe" with Sunbird but that’s the limit of it:
"Sunbird does not remember the URL of the published calendar, and it does not automatically update the published calendar with any changes you make in Sunbird. "
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A couple of months ago, I decided to leave Thunderbird.
I now use Opera 10 as browser & mail-client. Keeping a tab open on google calendar is just as easy and you’ve got full functionality. No more waiting for Lightning to be released whenever a major new version of Thunderbird is released.
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This is certainly a good development, given that Thunderbird is open-source and supports ical syncing very well, what with Thunderbird 2 aging. I do recommend people on Windows to try Windows Live Mail (the desktop client in Essentials) in the meanwhile. It already has most of the features debuting soon in Thunderbird 3, and while it currently only sync with WL Calendar (it can import/export ical), that service has improved by leaps and bounds over the past few years and is comparable to Google Calendar now.
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Still can’t export mail out of it? Trapped.
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@TheFu: I’m reading/writing to 7 different iCals at work (across 3 different servers) without issue.
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@zrag: Thunderbird uses the standard mbox format; no reason for a separate exporter. IMAP also provides a great way to migrate email.
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@Ronan: Agreed. The new search feature is a thing of rare beauty.
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Only reason I’m staying with Microsoft Outlook is my iPhone calendar and contact syncing. How come Apple won’t support Thunderbird ?
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@AdmNaismith: I personally haven’t had that issue for awhile with the 3.0 betas (YMMV); it’s one of the main reasons I switched to using the betas full-time. If you’re using 2.x and get bugged by that every time you launch TBird, it’s worth a shot.
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Love Thunderbird 3 beta 4 it works very well on all my systems (Vista, XP, Ubuntu).
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@sciencedude: Cant get local folders though. Thats where most of our users store their mail, because of quotas on what can actually sit in their box. It would be nice to have the ability to export the folders as pst.
Sure, I can spend 5 hours dragging mail around, from local to server, but life would be easier if i could just export the mailbox to the format I want without using a third party product.
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I tried it recently. After I configured Gmail in it, it started downloading around 1,800 emails, and then crashed continuously. Finally I had to close it. Waiting for RC release.
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@Anunnaki: I agree. Calendaring that doesn’t properly integrate with "some standard" calendar server (iCal, iCalandar) is worthless to me. "MS-Exchange" isn’t a standard until there is a published "standard interface" document.
Properly means:
– read AND write entries
– viewing other peoples’ calendars and resources for availability. If they are in the same calendar server, I shouldn’t have to do anything to view the resources (assuming the sever allows viewing). Look at Zimbra calendar if you need a hint for how this should work.
– A simple timer/alarm for very short-term alarms. "in 10 min, TEXT". Not stored between sessions.
Lastly, filters and tags that work with the email server, not only client-side. Tags that don’t work from any client aren’t useful to me. The system should allow tags to be automatically placed in all content, stored on the server, and viewable from any Thunderbird client. I’m on 3+ computers daily and the tags are all different now.
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