What’s New in Thunderbird 68

August 28, 2019 Ryan Sipes 16 responses

Our newest release, Thunderbird version 68 is now available! Users on version 60, the last major release, will not be immediately updated – but will receive the update in the coming weeks. In this blog post, we’ll take a look at the features that are most noteworthy in the newest version. If you’d like to see all the changes in version 68, you can check out the release notes.

Thunderbird 68 focuses on polish and setting the stage for future releases. There was a lot of work that we had to do below the surface that has made Thunderbird more future-proof and has made it a solid base to continue to build upon. But we also managed to create some great features you can touch today.

New App Menu

Thunderbird 68 features a big update to the App Menu. The new menu is single pane with icons and separators that make it easier to navigate and reduce clutter. Animation when cycling through menu items produces a more engaging experience and results in the menu feeling more responsive and modern.

Thunderbird’s New App Menu

Options/Preferences in a Tab

Thunderbird’s Options/Preferences have been converted from a dialog window to its own dedicated tab. The new Preferences tab provides more space which allows for better organized content and is more consistent with the look and feel of the rest of Thunderbird. The new Preferences tab also makes it easier to multitask without the problem of losing track of where your preferences are when switching between windows.

Preferences in a Tab

Full Color Support

Thunderbird now features full color support across the app. This means changing the color of the text of your email to any color you want or setting tags to any shade your heart desires.

Full Color Support

Better Dark Theme

The dark theme available in Thunderbird has been enhanced with a dark message thread pane as well as many other small improvements.

Thunderbird Dark Theme

Attachment Management

There are now more options available for managing attachments. You can “detach” an attachment to store it in a different folder while maintaining a link from the email to the new location. You can also open the folder containing a detached file via the “Open Containing Folder” option.

Attachment options for detached files.

Filelink Improved

Filelink attachments that have already been uploaded can now be linked to again instead of having to re-upload them. Also, an account is no longer required to use the default Filelink provider – WeTransfer.

Other Filelink providers like Box and Dropbox are not included by default but can be added by grabbing the Dropbox and Box add-ons.

Other Notable Changes

There are many other smaller changes that make Thunderbird 68 feel polished and powerful including an updated To/CC/BCC selector in the compose window, filters can now be set to run periodically, and feed articles now show external attachments as links.

There are many other updates in this release, you can see a list of all of them in the Thunderbird 68 release notes. If you would like to try the newest Thunderbird, head to our website and download it today!

16 responses

Bernd wrote on August 28, 2019 at 20:19

Thank you so much!

Attachment Management sounds interesting, any place to read technical details? I’m curious about how files are linked to messages and whether it’s safe to move linked files without loosing the link or how the link could be updated (programmatically).

BelFox wrote on August 29, 2019 at 20:25

Great work! Thank you.

Margt wrote on September 1, 2019 at 20:21

Address books is what brings me crazy, sometimes it loads and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes I have to close it and open it again up to 5 or 10 times to finally present it to me. Many times I work without it because of how tedious it is to close and open the program until it loads.

Ryan Sipes wrote on October 31, 2019 at 22:38

Address book is getting a major upgrade soon. We’ll be releasing details on that in the near future on this blog.

Nice improvements - not what clients are asking for though wrote on September 1, 2019 at 21:32

Clients have been asking for a better interface – specifically the use of color. How about tastefully using some color to make the app easier to use. Icons would a nice place to start.

Second, on the Mac TBird doesn’t work with the share menu. This is really crippling. Please fix.

Ryan Sipes wrote on October 9, 2019 at 09:34

Better icons, more color, and improved Mac support will happen. Promise. This release is about laying the groundwork. 🙂

Paula Hanley wrote on September 2, 2019 at 05:14

Given that the theme and appearance changer will no longer work with this updated version, what can I do to alter font size of the inbox pane? This is now very difficult to work with due to a minute font size- not very accessible. I would not have updated if I had known this. as it makes Thunderbird unworkable for me. and no doubt countless others.

Ryan Sipes wrote on October 31, 2019 at 22:41

You are trying to adjust the text size? Have you tried View -> Zoom In?

Alois Stritzinger wrote on September 2, 2019 at 14:39

I have a very annoying problem; thunderbird ignores/surpresses mails without a given subject – so I lost/oversaw important mails more than once; is there a way to read and display mails without subject?

Ryan Sipes wrote on October 31, 2019 at 22:43

I’m sorry Alois, but I’m not sure what you are experiencing here. Emails without subjects are showing up just fine in my tests.

Could you file a bug with more details here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Thunderbird A screenshot and longer description would go a long way to determining what the issue you are experiencing is.

Michael wrote on September 4, 2019 at 15:19

Hey guys,
congrats! But can you please fix the dark theme? Dark blue on a dark background (when replying) isn’t really that readable… Thanks!
Michael

Ryan Sipes wrote on October 9, 2019 at 09:32

Thanks for the feedback Michael, we will continue to work to improve the dark theme!

Sarah McKenzie wrote on September 5, 2019 at 10:58

What a great article with lots of new tips and info! As a copywriter in Hamilton Ontario, I am always interested in educating myself around new and innovative programs. Your article provides clear next steps for me at and I appreciate you taking the time to share. Many thanks!

MassiveAtoms wrote on September 6, 2019 at 06:56

Will Thunderbird support the native notifications from windows 10 with this version, and if not, what’s the ETA on that?

Ryan Sipes wrote on October 31, 2019 at 22:31

We are hoping to support native notifications on Windows and other operating system features in future releases. We are just trying to find talented people to help implement these features.

Simpleisgood wrote on September 6, 2019 at 16:03

Hi Ryan,

Thank you for the update! Thank you also to the TB Dev Team for the latest release! Looking forward to using TB68 hopefully soon.

I have a query:
On a Mac, can I install and *run* TB68 and TB60 simultaneously (in parallel) alongside each other (each with their own profile)? There are many benefits to this incl. having separate profiles for business and personal and being able to use them (open and run them) at the same instance.

I’ve read that Firefox is implementing/has implemented a Dedicated Profile feature (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/dedicated-profiles-firefox-installation), which is the same or similar to what I’m enquiring about above. However, I know TB development is independent from Firefox development. So, when will you guys be able to implement the same/similar and what can we do to help get this feature?

If not, is it possible to enable through workaround, e.g.:
1 – Renaming the Thunderbird installations as Thunderbird A and Thunderbird B?
2 – Via an add-on?
3 – By installing TB in a different directory?

NB.
I’ve noticed that there’s been a discussion about this topic or similar on Bugzilla.

I’ve also enquired about this in the TB Support Forum a while back:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1265160

To summarise that the support forum post:
I know I can use Terminal on Mac to specify profiles similar to in Firefox e.g.
open /Applications/Firefoxquantum.app –args -P Firefoxquantumprofile

However, I’ve ran into issues –
Sometimes when clicking on an out-of-browser web-link, there seems to be a mix-up of profiles and consequently the old Firefox profile gets corrupted. I lost some add-ons, add-on settings, bookmarks and some other damage too. I’m worried something similar may happen if I tried with TB and happened to click on an out-of-client email link, consequently calling up the wrong profile or corrupting one of the profiles.

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