Thunderbird - A Free, Open Source, and Powerful Email Client

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Summary: Thunderbird is a robust and powerful email program that can meet the needs of both light and power users. I use it all day every day.

Mozilla's Thunderbird is my choice for email. I use it all day every day, and I can heartily recommend it as an often more powerful and capable replacement for mail programs like Outlook Express, Windows Live Mail and many other desktop email applications.

The feature list is long, but I want to call out some of my favorite features and some of the things that personally draw me to Thunderbird and cause me to make it my recommendation for almost anyone using a desktop email program.

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Free: You already know that Thunderbird's free. That part's easy, and makes it something that is risk free to try and experiment with before deciding.
Comfort: Most users of Outlook Express will actually feel very comfortable in Thunderbird. Basic operation is very similar.
"... Thunderbird remains my recommended alternative to almost every other desktop email program."

File Format: Thunderbird uses a standard, common plain text file format for it's data store (mbox format, for the geeks among us). Many email programs use proprietary database formats that, quite frankly, seem prone to breaking and make it difficult to move from machine to machine. Thunderbird uses a simple on-disk folder structure that mirrors your email folder structure, and actual email is kept as plain text files. Moving your Thunderbird email from machine to machine is as simple as copying the folder tree.
Cross-platform support: I've successfully moved my email not only between Windows PCs, but also to my Mac and to my Linux machines. As I said, transferring was a simple copy of all the folders and support information. The result was that not only did my email get transferred, but all the account settings, filters and even supported extensions were moved as well.
Extensions: like it's cousin FireFox, Thunderbird has a number of powerful Add-ons available. Examples include Lightning, the calendar add-on and the Google Calendar Provider, the Enigmail encryption add-on, QuickText which allows you to enter common responses with a single keystroke, and one of my favorites, Nostalgy which allows you to copy or move messages between folder extremely easily using the keyboard.
Filters: Thunderbird supports a set of very powerful filters that allow you to have it take action automatically on mail as it arrives. For example, I have 37 separate filters that automatically sort incoming email and place it into various folders based on various criteria. Your needs may not be that complex, but simply being able to say things like "if this is from someone in my address book, move it into this folder" is a powerful way to prioritize your approach to email.

Naturally, there are many more features that may appeal to you. I encourage you to have a look.

Thunderbird is at version 2 and remains stable. Version 3 is underway with assorted features and enhancements, of course. But even at v2, Thunderbird remains my recommended alternative to almost every other desktop email program. (The sole exception would be Microsoft Outlook for the corporate and power user, but even then, I'm a power user, and have come to prefer Thunderbird anyway.)

If you don't already have a favorite (I acknowledge that email programs are often a personal, even passionate, decision), or you're struggling with the drawbacks of whatever program you're currently using, Thunderbird is worth a look.

I recommend it.

Related:

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How do I move from web-based email to email on my desktop? Moving from a web based free email service to downloading email to your desktop is a smart move, but often not as easy to do as we'd like.
Are free email services worth it? Free email services and accounts are convenient and ubiquitous. But free email services aren't the right place to keep your important information.

Article 12561 | Posted July 20, 2008

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Recent Comments

15 Comments

I like Thunderbird, but there are a few huge problems that the team refuses to look into. (I've been on the mozdev boards). 1: try sending emails with pictures, we do this at work all the time. Doesn't work in Thunderbird. Or forwarding. 2. Cant handle rich text properly. 3. Calendar plugin is not smooth, doesn't fully replicate Outlook functionality.

I would Love to replace Outlook, as it has ~no usability. (31 configuration forms and rising, and no evolution over time with the exception of the move to unicode, thankfully no 2GB limit anymore.) Tbird is a nice start, but the development team is not anything like Firefox's team, who fix bugs with the quickness.
Cheers!

Posted by: Kevin Farley at July 21, 2008 8:09 AM

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Novice: Ziggie answered before I could. :-) I'll also point
out this article:
http://ask-leo.com/how_do_i_backup_my_gmail.html

Leo

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Posted by: Leo at July 21, 2008 9:29 AM

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Kevin: I can't speak to the mozilla dev team's
responsiveness, however:

1) I send emails with pictures all the time. As attachments,
embedded, what have you. Works great.

2) Rich text also works well, as far as I can tell. Better,
in some cases, than Outlook in my opinion.

3) Yes, the calendar falls short in some respects. I find,
though, that hooking it to Google Calendar goes a *long* way
to making it much more functional. But strong enterprise
users that rely heavily on calendaring and meeting
scheduling and the like may be better served by Outlook.

Leo

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Posted by: Leo at July 21, 2008 9:32 AM

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Vincent: yes. There are add-ons that allow you to download
Hotmail, Yahoo mail and perhaps others, directly into
Thunderbird. My Hotmail account is mostly spam, so I don't
use them, but I did try them a while back and they worked
well.

Leo

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Posted by: Leo at July 21, 2008 9:33 AM

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Vincent: I *believe* that Thunderbird will import the
directory/folder structure. I would strongly suggest you
test this. It's one area where it seems like many mail
programs fall down.

Leo

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Posted by: Leo at July 21, 2008 9:34 AM

Thunderbird won't import mail or addresses from Microsoft Mail (Outlook Express replacement). Without that functionality, it is completely worthless to me.

Posted by: Richard Deem at July 22, 2008 11:37 AM

Thanks Leo, I just tried "Thunderbird" and love it to death, I was using "OE" than that switched on me when I installed "MS Office 2007" to "Outlook" by default. I hated "Outlook", it was just to busy for what I needed, but "Thunderbird" is great, just what I need and so much faster than "Outlook" Plus being able to "POP"download my "Hotmail". Thanks again for the recommendation. One caveat tho, first time I installed it I transferred my "outlook" settings to it and had no way to put in my passwords so I had to uninstall and reinstall adding my accounts separately.

Posted by: Dave at July 24, 2008 11:57 AM

I like Thunderbird very much. Except, it won't work with AT&T/Yahoo browser. I can't seem to get any help from either AT&T or Thunderbird.

Posted by: Leo Mayer at September 16, 2008 1:32 PM

I guess I haven't been paying close enough attention. I didn't realize that "Outlook Express" is going away. When I got a new computer a couple of years ago, I also purchased Office and tried "Outlook," but quit using it after a few days and went back to "Outlook Express," which I still use. As Leo often suggests, I have Windows automatic updates turned on, but after virtually every update, it changes my email client back to "Outlook." I even tried removing "Outlook" but it still does that.

I'm trying to figure out from the above commentary about "Thunderbird" if it will import my files from OE, including the address book, or do I have to start over? I'd dread starting over, because I frequently refer back to emails that are a couple of years old. If "OE" goes away, I don't know how I'll be able to do that.

I believe Thunderbird imports from Outlook Express.

-Leo

Posted by: Bill Nelson at September 17, 2008 12:58 AM

I haven't heard any mention of'windows live mail'. I like it better than OE and Outlook.

Posted by: Gary Adsitt at November 4, 2008 8:20 PM

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