Thunderbird to support OpenPGP encryption standard in 2020

Martin Brinkmann
Oct 8, 2019
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The next major version of the open source cross-platform email client Thunderbird will support the OpenPGP encryption standard natively.

Thunderbird users may use the extension Enigmail currently to use OpenPGP functionality in the email client; this adds encryption and digital signature support to the email client to protect emails from unauthorized access (emails are transferred in plain text by default). Jack Wallen reviewed Enigmail back in 2009 and I published an updated guide in September 2017 detailing how to encrypt emails in Thunderbird using Enigmail.

The development team released Thunderbird 68 in August. Thunderbird shares code with the Firefox web browser and a consequence of that was that the team had to make changes to the extensions system just like Mozilla did when it released Firefox 57.  Thunderbird 68.0 does not support certain types of classic extensions and the next major version of Thunderbird, version 78, finalizes the migration.

enigmail sign key

One consequence of the move is that classic add-ons, Enigmail being one of them, won't be supported anymore in the new version of the email client. Some extensions may be ported while others may not as it depends on API support and a developer's willingness to migrate the extension.

Enigmail is used by over 119,000 users currently and discontinuation of the extension would affect these users severely. The development team decided to explore options and one of them was to integrate the OpenPGP standard natively in the client; this would allow users of Enigmail to migrate to the built-in functionality and make encryption functionality available to all users of the email client.

Thunderbird 78, which will be released in Summer 2020, will support native encryption. Enigmail won't be compatible with Thunderbird 78 anymore. The developer of the Enigmail extension agreed to work with the Thunderbird team to implement OpenPGP functionality in the email client.

Enigmail users will get options to migrate existing keys and settings, and most things should work just like before. Whether indirect key ownership confirmations will be supported has not been decided yet.

Thunderbird 78 "will encourage" users of Enigmail to perform ownership confirmations of keys and notify the user if the key of the correspondent changed.

Encryption won't be enabled automatically for users who have not used Enigmail in the past but the team plans to integrate discovery options in the client.

A wiki page highlights the plans in detail.

Closing Words

Thunderbird 78 will support native OpenPGP standard support; that is a good thing as it unlocks encryption options to every user of the client. The original developer will work on the integration and existing users may migrate to the native solution once it lands in Thunderbird. A few uncertainties remain as the development plan has not been finalized yet.

Now You: do you encrypt your emails?(via Deskmodder)

Summary
Thunderbird to support OpenPGP encryption standard in 2020
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Thunderbird to support OpenPGP encryption standard in 2020
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The next major version of the open source cross-platform email client Thunderbird will support the OpenPGP encryption standard natively.
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Ghacks Technology News
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Comments

  1. JMGG said on January 19, 2012 at 8:25 am
    Reply

    You said that Outlook isn’t your main email client, so which is your main one?

    1. BalaC said on January 19, 2012 at 9:42 am
      Reply

      I think its thunderbird

    2. Martin Brinkmann said on January 19, 2012 at 10:15 am
      Reply

      It is Mozilla Thunderbird.

  2. Salaam said on September 24, 2012 at 9:52 pm
    Reply

    Awesome! This actually solved my problem… what a stupid bug.

  3. Claud said on December 19, 2012 at 2:08 am
    Reply

    If this is the same bug that I’ve encountered, there may be another fix: (1) hover over open Outlook item in Taskbar, cursor up to hover over Outlook window item, and right-click; (2) this should give you Restore / Move / Size / Minimize / Maximize — choose Move or Size; (3) use your cursor keys, going arbitrarily N/S/E/W, to try to move or size the Outlook window back into view. Basically, the app behaves as though it were open in a 0x0 window, or at a location that’s offscreen, and this will frequently work to resize and/or move the window. Don’t forget to close while resized/moved, so that Outlook remembers the size/position for next time.

    1. Lynda said on February 12, 2013 at 3:37 pm
      Reply

      THANK YOU Claude!!! I could get the main window to launch but could not get any other message window to show on the desktop. You are my hero!!!!

    2. Chad said on November 20, 2018 at 4:24 pm
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      Solved my issue! 6 years later and this is still problem…

    3. Ivan X said on January 21, 2021 at 4:50 pm
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      Fantastic. Thank you. Size did the trick.

  4. Andrew said on October 26, 2013 at 7:06 am
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    This solved my Outlook problem, too. Thank you. :)

  5. Charles said on December 7, 2013 at 7:23 pm
    Reply

    Thank you so much, this started happening to me today and was causing big problems. You are a life saver, I hope I can help you in some way some day.

  6. garth said on November 7, 2014 at 7:13 pm
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    You are a god – thank you!

  7. Faisal said on February 9, 2015 at 10:09 am
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    thanks a lot…. work like charm.. :-)

  8. Simon said on March 24, 2015 at 11:36 pm
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    Yah…thanks Claude. I’ve been having the same problem and tried all the suggestions…your solution was the answer. It had resized itself to a 0/0 box. Cheers

  9. Olu said on April 14, 2015 at 1:35 pm
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    Excellent post. This had me baffled even trying to accurately describe the problem. This fixed it for me.
    Thank you

  10. Coenig said on July 23, 2015 at 7:36 am
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    Thanks a lot for the article. Don’t know why it happenend, don’t know how it got fixed, but it was really annoying and now it works :-)

  11. Fali said on January 20, 2016 at 4:19 pm
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    Thanks a lot. I was facing this issue from past 3 week. I tried everything but no resolution. The issue was happening intermittently and mainly when I was changing the display of screen ( as i use 2 monitors). The only option i had was to do system restore. But thanks to you.

    1. MIki said on January 10, 2019 at 11:54 am
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      I’ve been tried to sole this problem for 12hours. Your comment about changing the display of screen helped me a lot!! Thanks!!

  12. Christina said on January 20, 2016 at 6:14 pm
    Reply

    Thank you…don’t know why this happened but your instructions helped me fix it. Running Windows 10 and office pro 2007

  13. Oz said on July 22, 2016 at 3:20 pm
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    Great tip! Thanks!

  14. Tracy said on September 1, 2016 at 4:48 pm
    Reply

    Worked for me, too – thank you!!!

  15. shawn said on September 9, 2016 at 10:25 am
    Reply

    It’s Worked for me, too
    thank you very much!

  16. Jari said on October 31, 2016 at 11:53 am
    Reply

    I had a similar issue with Outlook 2013 on Windows 10 and this helped me to fix it. Thank you very much!

  17. Michel H said on November 30, 2016 at 11:08 pm
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    Thank you so much. Solved!
    Considering you published this in 2012, incredible not been debugged by Microsoft.
    Thank you again. M

  18. Ziad Bitar said on January 9, 2017 at 2:00 am
    Reply

    This problem was faced by only one user logging to TS 2008 r2 using outlook 2010.The issue was resolved.

    Thanks.

  19. Anonymous said on February 15, 2017 at 5:24 pm
    Reply

    Great tip. Thank you!!!! If it helps, I had to use the Control Key and the arrow keys at the same time to bring my window back into view. Worked like a charm.

  20. Rochelle said on March 6, 2017 at 11:59 am
    Reply

    Thank you, this worked !!!!

  21. anom1234 said on May 20, 2018 at 11:20 pm
    Reply

    Man, you are a fucking god. Thanks a lot, what an annoying bug!!

  22. JC said on October 12, 2020 at 2:14 pm
    Reply

    Awesome, this post solved the issue. Many thanks!

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