Something to survey forward to: Mozilla’s Thunderbird has long been knowing to be one of the most finest email clients for individuals who mark commence-source instrument and privacy, nonetheless it’s simplest been accessible to desktop users. Fortunately, that is set to swap. Soon, Thunderbird will be coming to Android devices as a result of a merger (of types) between Mozilla’s client and the K-9 Mail app.
In case you’re wondering what K-9 Mail is, it’s every other commence source email client, very like Thunderbird. Though it would no longer tout privacy as knowing to be one of its key formula, it boasts quite a bit of others — abet for Push IMAP, white and sad topics, message flagging, and the flexibility to direct up ‘a few identities’ for email accounts, to title a few.
As for why Thunderbird is exciting K-9 Mail now — reputedly all of a sudden — it turns out that these plans were direct in movement years previously. Intention support in 2018, if truth be told. On the time, Thunderbird Product Supervisor Ryan Lee Sipes met with K-9 project maintainer Christian Ketterer to focus on a collaboration between K-9 and Thunderbird. Those talks finally evolved exact into a more mighty dialogue about how the 2 separate initiatives could well join forces to make an “superior, seamless email abilities across platforms.”
For Ketterer and Sipes, that doesn’t suggest developing an completely new cell client jointly — nonetheless as a substitute merely making Thunderbird their collective focal point.
As such, sooner or later in the expectantly no longer-too-distant future, K-9 will develop into Thunderbird’s Android client. The branding will swap, and every the finest and featureset will be altered to match Thunderbird’s desktop counterpart.
It will remove quite so a lot of exhausting work from the Thunderbird team and K-9’s contributors to prevail in that time, for sure. However, now that Ketterer has joined the Thunderbird crew tubby-time, the transition can even restful be a minute smoother. At any price, we are in a position to no longer wait to survey Thunderbird develop the leap to Android, and we hope it happens sooner in preference to later.
