Betterbird. Simply better.
Betterbird is a fine-tuned version of Mozilla
Thunderbird, Thunderbird on steroids, if you will.
Betterbird is better than Thunderbird in three ways:
It contains new features exclusive to Betterbird, it contains bug fixes exclusive to Betterbird and it
contains fixes that Thunderbird may ship at a later stage. Please refer to this
feature table for examples. This should give
you an impression of where the project is headed.
More information on why we're doing the project can be found at the FAQ.
Betterbird 91.0 released on 5th August 2021
Today we are shipping the first release "bb8" of Betterbird version 91.
In a successful beta period of Betterbird, we shipped the first beta release "bb1" on 12th July 2021,
the last beta release "bb7" on 2nd August 2021.
Please refer to the
release notes for details.
Betterbird 91.0.1 released on 17th August 2021
Today we are shipping Betterbird version 91.0.1-bb9.
We are proud to make the first localisation into German available.
Please refer to the
release notes for details.
Betterbird 91.2.1 released on 19th October 2021
Today we are shipping Betterbird version 91.2.1-bb17.
Please refer to the
release notes for details.
This includes "regular" (not global) search and Quick Filter for encrypted messages.
Other news
For the much requested multi-line view, see
here for details.
Examples of Betterbird being better in version 91.2.1-bb17
| Feature | Betterbird | Thunderbird |
| Features exclusive to Betterbird |
| Multi-line view like in Outlook, Lotus Notes and Postbox |
Yes! | Requested since 2003 |
| Can customise the header pane buttons |
Yes! | No, feature deliberately removed |
| Quick Filter untagged messages |
Yes! | Development stalled since 2016 |
| Permanently decrypt messages | Yes! | Not working since version 78 |
| Global search in encrypted messages | Yes! | Not working :-( |
| Quick Filter search in encrypted messages | Yes! | Not working |
| Windows systray icon |
New messages count and folder list | New messages count |
| Printing the selection | Yes!
Preview here. |
Quote: "this cannot be fixed" |
| Activity Manager | Opens in tab | Opens in stand-alone window |
| Bug fixes so far exclusive to Betterbird(*) |
| Opening an attachment | Fine | Keeps asking what to do |
| Inserting links with spaces | Fine | Random incorrect results |
| View > Repair Text Encoding | Working | New feature and broken already |
| Add search engine via XML file | Working | Broken since version 87 beta |
Of course the Thunderbird team is busily adding a whole bunch of much welcomed new stuff and improvements, but
making sure that everything remains in working order falls by the wayside. Thunderbird is shipped with
unnecessary regressions, so things that used to work stopped working.
(*) We supply our changes to Thunderbird, but it is unclear if/when "upstream" will accept them.