Thunderbird 78.8.1 is a bug fix release
The team that is responsible for the Thunderbird desktop email client has released Thunderbird 78.8.1 to the stable channel. The new version of the email client is already available; it is a bug fix release that addresses several issues in the email client, but not a security release.
Thunderbird users should get the update automatically eventually thanks to the client's built-in updating system. Select Help > About Thunderbird to display the currently installed version and to run a manual check for updates. It should be picked up and installed automatically then.
There is no rush to install the new version as it does not patch security issues or major stopper bugs, e.g. crashes. Still, users affected by one or multiple issues may want to install the new version to get these resolved.
Here is the list of things changed in Thunderbird 78.8.1:
- If previously received mail was unread, new mail notifications did not occur.
- The client did not remember the folder that multiple attachments were saved to.
- Opening messages from the command line failed under certain circumstances.
- Several account related fixes:
- Provider email and display name were not used during automatic account setup.
- New identities were not listed in the account manager until it was closed and reopened.
- UTF-8 data was not handled properly by the account provisioner.
- The copying of a large message to an IMAP server would display a time-out error prematurely sometimes.
- Several OpenPGP related fixes:
- Several fixes for issues when importing keys.
- Content-Description was not set for outgoing emails with public keys attached to them.
- CardDAV sync errors were stuck and not retried until Thunderbird was restarted.
- Several Calendar related fixes:
- Changing the cache mode of CalDAV calendars would cause the username of the account to be lost.
- Add-on calendars were not visible after restarting sometimes.
- Previews of recurring tasks were not using all available space in dialog windows.
- The option to keep the distribution directory of the installer on upgrade was not working.
You can check out the entire release notes of Thunderbird 78.8.1 here.
The next major Thunderbird version, Thunderbird 78.9, will be released on March 23, 2021 alongside Firefox 78.9 ESR and Firefox 87 Stable.
Now You: which email clients / services do you use?
Thanks for the Thunderbird news.
Thunderbird is a very good email client, and it is multi-platform.