Thunderbird email support won't be extended for older Windows and Mac systems
Users of the open source email client Thunderbird who still run it on old versions of Windows or Mac will no longer get updates for the program from next month onward.
The team behind the email client announced that support will end as scheduled. This means that this month's Thunderbird 115.15.0 release was the last major release for those platforms.
Here are the details:
- This affects Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, and macOS 10.14 or earlier.
- Thunderbird 115.15 is the last major release for the listed operating systems.
- Thunderbird ESR 128 won't run on the systems anymore.
Thunderbird 128, the latest version of the client, is only compatible with Windows 10 and 11, macOS 10.15 and higher, and Linux.
Mozilla extends Firefox support, Thunderbird does not
Mozilla faced the very same issue for its Firefox web browser, but it decided to extend support. Thunderbird uses Firefox code, which explains why the makers of both products had to find an answer for the same question.
Mozilla decided to extend support. Firefox users who still use one of the listed operating systems will receive support for another six months at the very least.
The Thunderbird team offers three reasons for its decision to end support:
- Usage is lower. About 11 percent of Firefox users use Windows 7 or Windows 8 / 8.1. For Thunderbird, the number is 6 percent.
- The Thunderbird team has fewer resources available and extending support would take away resources needed elsewhere.
- Microsoft ended support for these operating systems.
Clearly, Thunderbird's project team is much smaller than the Firefox development team. That is a valid argument. Six percent seems like a large number nevertheless. While there are no public usage numbers for Thunderbird, even a low figure such as 10 million users would mean that 600,000 are affected by the decision.
Thunderbird will continue to run after support ends, but the email client won't receive updates anymore. This includes security updates. There is also the chance that issues and bugs may cause certain features of the client to stop working.
This may not happen overnight, but since technology moves on, it seems likely that some features will stop working in the future.
Thunderbird users who cannot switch systems at the time may be able to access the email accounts on the Web. As far as email clients are concerned that support Windows 7 or 8, there are few. Postbox supports Windows 8 only, while MailSpring appears compatible with Windows 7.
Do you know of other email clients? Let us know in the comments down below. (via)
Thankfully they will continue to support the Linux version. This has been an interesting email-related month. Last week we were informed that starting November 2nd, our email system will no longer deliver emails coming from gmail, all microsoft versions (outlook, hotmail, etc), all verizon versions (AOL, Yahoo), GMX/Mail.com (who by the way are blocking US users from creating new accounts since last week), and a few others. Our servers handle over 350,000 individual email accounts so not processing emails from those providers will not make a difference for them – they have millions of idiots using their “services” when in fact the users are the ones being used.
> Do you know of other email clients?
Well, yes.
I’ve long been a fan of Pop Peeper, available free at https://www.esumsoft.com/
I use it to preview incoming mail before receiving it to my Thunderbird Inbox. Does a wonderful job.
It also has a “Send Mail” > “Compose new message…” menu item I’ve never tried. After receiving thousands of emails with Pop Peeper, I expect it can also send one. OK, I’ll try it. … … … Yes, it worked fine.
It’s about as simple and stripped down as software gets. I approve of the designer’s intentions. More people should follow this example of elegant simplicity.
“About 11 percent of Firefox users use Windows 7 or Windows 8 / 8.1. For Thunderbird, the number is 6 percent.”
11 percent of Firefox users being W7/W8 is CRAZY. Not in a bad way, but damn I wasn’t expecting it.
I still use Outlook 2010 for the basics without issues. Can still link outside accounts to it. I also have TB which I thought I would move to AFTER Outlook no longer functioned. Funny it still functions. I expect TB will continue to function under Win7/8 too. Just no new features that don’t really add that much value.
“I just didn’t update” … Exactly, it just works, I don’t need “new features” that break everything.
I will just continue to use Thunderbird. I only use it for email. I don’t even use the calendar.
Postbox looks like it supports Windows 8 and above, but it’s not free. A lifetime licence (couldn’t find any others) costs US$29
Tuta.com (formally Tutanota) has an integrated desktop email client, mobile client and webmail. The free version gives you 1GB storage and a calendar. All mails are encrypted, but you can send an email to someone who isn’t subscribed to Tuta which they can open with a password. The password needs to be sent separately using another application such as Signal. I use this myself on Windows 8.1, but I switched to a paid for account just recently. There are no restrictions as to which OS you use though. https://tuta.com/pricing
The mail component of SeaMonkey will work, at least for now. It has OAuth2 authentication so one can add gMail and Outlook accounts.
No reason to support unsupported operating systems.
Except A LOT of people HATE the Windows 10 and 11 UI, and that’s a valid criticism.
Jody, the UI is the problem? Maybe, but also a massive philosophy shift into the new era of “you don’t own your OS, we will change random crap, advertise to you, and update your system whether you like it or not, along with doing intrusive security checks and sending a crap-ton of telemetry”. But sure, the UI is worse too…
Well the truth is you’ve NEVER owned your OS. You use it under a condition of license. So the “I don’t own it any more” argument doesn’t wash with me. You certainly can’t turn off as much telemetry, and customize the UI.
As for the other arguments you pose, I’ll be using the LTSC 2019 build of Windows 10, so I’m less affected by that. So to answer your question … Yes, it’s that damned UI.
@Jody Thornton,
Way to miss the point. What do people say when they use the phrase “you don’t own the OS”? yeah no shit there’s a licence agreement, that’s a level of pedantry I didn’t expect to see…
Windows 7 was an OS where nothing would happen without your say-so, configurably so, but you didn’t even need to resort to hacks to get there. So with Windows 7, you have the final say on what happens, and don’t have to battle with the OS, that’s what people mean when they say “you own the OS”.
This is infinitely less the case with Windows 10, which is why people say “you don’t own the OS”, because in many ways, Microsoft has the final say, (unless you truly break system services, tinker with certain files, etc, which is obviously not a good way to do things), you’re aware of this, and understand it, yet you are choosing to misunderstand this common phrase for some reason – can’t see why.
I use W7 at home, and W10+W11 at work, Windows 10 is ugly and has nauseating animations, and the crappy laughable “mica” effect, but most things have not changed that much, I am still using many control panel items by calling them directly, still using cmd, you can put back your file explorer to the Windows 8 one, right click context menus don’t contain icons/emojis. Your original reply lumped W10 and W11 into the same camp, yet whilst both are garbage, Windows 11 is actually deserving of it’s own new category of terrible.
I was the one who made my UI point, so I didn’t miss any point. You just disagree, and we have different priorities. So were done here.
Instead of being argumentative, angry and “Facebook-like”, focus on disagreeing with John. Sheesh!
John is very evidently a lost cause, so there’s hardly any point even addressing him (or people like him). They don’t use older systems yet clicked on an article about them, they really don’t care.
The thing is, Windows was a product of it’s time, the “culture”, philosophy, ideology and priorities are things which never stand still, and some time ago they changed for the worse at Microsoft, that’s why the OS sucks.
Windows 10 or 11 with “old Microsoft” at the helm would have been infinitely more free and customisable, even if the same exact product shipped on launch date.
I looked for years for something to replace TB. I never found a desktop email client to replace TB and I only use it for mail and calender, nothing else.
Because for several years it had major issues properly integrating with my google calenders.
I just didn’t update. I manually created a policy that disabled updates and ran on the same version of TB for several years. Eventually they did get it working right and I moved to the newer version.
I still wish TB would stop trying to be anything but an email and calender client.