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Thunderbird

Thunderbird

Overview

What is Thunderbird?

Thunderbird, developed by Mozilla, is an email application designed to provide users with a fast, secure, and customizable email experience. It is positioned as a versatile solution suitable for individuals, small businesses, and large organizations. According to the vendor, professionals in various...

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

Thunderbird addresses several key business problems and provides a range of use cases to enhance users' email management experience. Users …
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Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Pricing

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What is Thunderbird?

Thunderbird is an open-source email management application from MZLA Technologies Corporation, a subsidiary of Mozilla.

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Product Details

What is Thunderbird?

Thunderbird, developed by Mozilla, is an email application designed to provide users with a fast, secure, and customizable email experience. It is positioned as a versatile solution suitable for individuals, small businesses, and large organizations. According to the vendor, professionals in various fields such as software development, computer science, engineering, and design rely on Thunderbird for efficient email management. Additionally, small business owners, non-profit organizations, government agencies, freelancers, and remote workers also benefit from Thunderbird's robust features and emphasis on privacy and security.

Key Features

Unified Inbox: According to the vendor, Thunderbird's unified inbox allows users to view and manage multiple email accounts in one place, helping them stay organized and efficiently manage incoming emails.

Tagging: Thunderbird provides a tagging feature that allows users to categorize and label their emails. The vendor claims that users can easily tag important emails and quickly find them later using the tag filter.

Cross-Platform Compatibility: Thunderbird is compatible with multiple operating systems, including Windows, macOS, and Linux. The vendor states that this cross-platform compatibility ensures seamless email access regardless of the preferred operating system.

Open Source: Thunderbird is an open-source email client, promoting transparency, security, and community collaboration, according to the vendor.

Privacy and Security: The vendor emphasizes that Thunderbird prioritizes user privacy and security. They state that Thunderbird does not collect personal data, sell ads, or train AI with private conversations.

Customizability: Thunderbird offers a high level of customizability, allowing users to personalize their email client to match their workflow and visual preferences, as claimed by the vendor.

Multiple Language Support: Thunderbird supports multiple languages, making it accessible to users worldwide, according to the vendor.

Calendar Integration: Thunderbird integrates a calendar feature that allows users to manage their schedules, appointments, and events within the email client, as stated by the vendor.

Powerful Search: Thunderbird provides a powerful search functionality that allows users to easily find specific emails or contacts, according to the vendor.

Add-ons and Extensions: Thunderbird supports add-ons and extensions, enabling users to enhance the functionality of their email client, as claimed by the vendor.

Thunderbird Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(13)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

Thunderbird addresses several key business problems and provides a range of use cases to enhance users' email management experience. Users who have migrated from webmail and Outlook attest to Thunderbird's ability to overcome web-based limitations and improve user-friendliness. With Thunderbird, users can efficiently organize meetings, follow-ups, outreach, and set up new calendar events, surpassing the functionality of Gmail or Outlook web portals.

One of the main advantages of Thunderbird is its synchronization feature, which allows users to manage multiple mail accounts from different servers in a single email client. This capability not only streamlines email management but also improves efficiency and productivity. Additionally, Thunderbird's cross-platform compatibility supports both Windows and Linux operating systems, making it a versatile solution for businesses with different IT infrastructures.

Another significant business problem Thunderbird solves is the efficient handling of large volumes of emails without performance issues. This makes it particularly suitable for managing business email communications. Users appreciate Thunderbird's easy email management system, which includes features such as tagging and filtering, helping them streamline their workflow and save valuable time.

Thunderbird also eliminates the need to monitor separate sites by consolidating multiple email inbox accounts into one location. This centralized approach simplifies email management and increases productivity. Additionally, Thunderbird's preview feature allows users to view emails without double-clicking, providing a seamless user experience similar to popular web-based platforms like Gmail.

The clean and simple interface of Thunderbird has been well-received by users who find it enjoyable to navigate. Its calendar feature in the sidebar further enhances the user experience by offering quick access to scheduling and task management functionalities. Furthermore, Thunderbird's folder creation and message filtering capabilities enable effective organization and categorization of emails.

Thunderbird's support for multiple profiles is another valuable feature that simplifies sending emails from different accounts. Users can easily switch between profiles without any complications. Moreover, Thunderbird enables users to track the history of emails, send attachments, and access their emails from different devices, providing flexibility and convenience.

The spam filtering capability of Thunderbird has gained praise for its effectiveness and stability, making it a reliable choice for business email communication. Users find comfort in knowing that Thunderbird prevents viruses and junk mail from infiltrating their inbox while maintaining a high level of security.

Overall, Thunderbird's unique combination of features, including efficient email organization, cross-platform compatibility, robust spam filtering, and ease of use, positions it as a valuable tool for individuals and businesses alike. Whether it is managing multiple email

Users commonly recommend Thunderbird for the following reasons:

  1. Thunderbird provides a comprehensive set of features and is completely free to use. It is highly recommended for email management, particularly for organizations that require internal communications. Users appreciate Thunderbird's easy configuration and its ability to handle multiple mail servers in a single email software.

  2. Thunderbird is often considered a great alternative to Microsoft Outlook. Users find it to be a reliable email client with good SPAM protection and the capability to handle large email storage. Its simplicity and customization options are praised, as well as its ease of use and integration with IMAP or POP email providers.

  3. Thunderbird's ability to combine multiple emails into one platform is seen as a significant advantage, especially for users who manage multiple email accounts. While it may not have the same visual appeal as Gmail, Thunderbird is highly recommended for business emails with custom domains and support for multiple emails. It can be accessed in over 25 desktop-based email clients and serves as a budget solution for browsing mail from the system level.

Overall, users find Thunderbird to be an ideal solution for individuals who utilize multiple emails and want to access messages directly from their accounts. It is valued for its simplicity, synchronization features, security, ease of installation, stability, and integration with antivirus software. In addition, Thunderbird is regarded as a valuable tool for organizing emails and offers better control and supervision over them. Its efficiency in saving time when working with multiple emails on a daily basis is also appreciated by users.

Reviews

(1-3 of 3)
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Rene Agredano | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We've been using Thunderbird for at least 15 years. Every day it's an indispensable tool for our email, task tracking, and scheduling. It helps us manage our incoming messages, stay on top of our meetings, and use it as a replacement for Microsoft email software. After all these years, nothing has done more to help us stay on top of the deluge of messages we receive for product orders and general correspondence needs of our businesses.
  • Email receiving
  • Email sending
  • Email composition
  • Ability to add calendar and task plugins
  • Its VERY difficult to find a good backup solution
  • We would love to see more attention paid to task scheduling and tracking
  • It would be nice to have all-in-one solution instead of having to use different plug-ins
Thunderbird is a great solution if you primarily work on the desktop. I like knowing that Google isn't snooping around my emails to sell me things I don't want or need. It's relatively easy to use, but can be tricky to install and sync with other email services like Gmail. If I didn't have a technical wiz for a partner I'm not sure I would have started using it in the first place. You do need some kind of technical ability to install, troubleshoot, and backup.
  • Its FREE and donation based. Can't get better than that.
  • I love that we aren't giving away our privacy to Google.
  • And I especially love that it's a grass-rootsy endeavor.
Haresh Kodnani | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Mozilla Thunderbird is the only "email client" we use across our organization since the past 7-8 years. Emails has emerged as a vital and official channel of communication and this product, despite being free, has continued to provide 100% failsafe and secure performance ever since the first installation. I have never used the actual gmail interface and have this email client installed on every terminal in use. The ability to manage folders, pull out email threads / history , to priortize or mark emails for further action and its event reminders - these are just at the beginning of the list of positives
  • Setup and organization of folders and sub-folders
  • Email Security
  • Ease of managing emails
  • definitely needs a mobile /andriod version
Mozilla Thunderbird comes well-recommended for all types of users - be it enterprise or a teenager. The habit of managing emails effectively is vital and mozilla is the very best we have come across
  • While quantifying the direct impact of such a product is difficult, I can add that we have made it mandatory for all our personnel
We choose Thunderbird since it proved to be sufficient for our needs and is freeware. The choice was also influenced by a contact who is a certified cybercrime investigator
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I have been using Gmail as my email client for about 10 years. But for some reason, starting about 2 years ago, certain emails just wouldn't download (using POP3, not IMAP). So I needed another email client to cross-reference, and make sure I wasn't missing anything important. I still use Gmail as my primary client for about 8 of my 10 email addresses.
  • Successfully downloads all of my email
  • Allows me to connect via IMAP so it's synced with my actual email server
  • Not nearly as clean or nice-looking as Gmail
  • Easy to navigate threading and search capability seems limited
  • Very slow and clunky. I am still combing through about 10,000 emails that I'm slowly trying to delete (mostly junk/spam/transactional emails) and if I highlight even just like 20 emails at a time it takes about 5 seconds to delete them so no way to do this efficiently
I like that it's free, I like that it's open-source, and the fact that it allows IMAP lets me have this on all 3 laptops and it's synced.

I would never consider using it as my primary email client, however; just too clunky and can't navigate around fast enough the way I do with Gmail. And not even close to having all the features I'd need that Gmail does: 30 second undo-sending, canned responses, easy-to-create signatures for each email address (I literally toggle over to Gmail, compose a message, and paste my sig into the body of Thunderbird emails, so clunky), all spam ends up in my inbox even after I've marked enough as spam that it should know, email labeling and filtering... Gmail is just way more advanced and feature-ful. But, Thunderbird does beat my ridiculous RoundCube webmail interface!
  • More efficient email navigation and answering = more efficient work time for me
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