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Betterbird is a fine-tuned version of Mozilla Thunderbird, Thunderbird on steroids, if you will. Betterbird aims at providing a better user experience by fixing annoying bugs in Thunderbird and implementing new features. Please refer to this feature table for examples. This should give you an impression of where the project is headed.

Betterbird is a soft fork of Mozilla Thunderbird. Soft fork means that it is closely following the Thunderbird Extended Support Releases (ESR) therefore avoiding the mistakes of other forks which quickly lost track of upstream Thunderbird, thus opening users up to security vulnerabilities.

Is Betterbird for me?
If you like Thunderbird but are discouraged by too many bugs, then give Betterbird a try. It is 100% compatible with Thunderbird’s ESR version. You can install the same dot release of Thunderbird in parallel and switch between Betterbird and Thunderbird on the same profile without problems and without needing the -allow-downgrade command line switch.

102.12.0-bb37 (6 June 2023)
Based on Thunderbird 102.12.0, release notes.

Fixed in this version:
Nothing new this time, folks, but still many fixes ahead of Thunderbird.

Fixed in Betterbird, not fixed in Thunderbird 102.12.0 yet:
Fixes provided by the Betterbird project and integrated into Thunderbird to be released later

CHANGED – Improved the Sending progress dialogue: Now works during retry if previous dialogue was cancelled (fixed in 102.9.1) – Bug 1824624
FIXED – Hang when viewing HTML message with many links as plain text (possible denial of service attack vector) (fixed in 102.9.0) – Bug 1812386
FIXED – Subscribe/Unsubscribe buttons didn’t check/uncheck the respective checkbox for the folder) (fixed in 102.7.1) – Bug 1813346
CHANGED – Selecting or unselecting a dictionary in the editor context menu doesn’t close the menu (fixed in 102.0) – Bug 1761417
FIXED – Various problems when saving the compose window as file (fixed in 91.9.1) – Bug 1676825
FIXED – Status text sometimes displayed “null” (fixed in 91.9.0) – Bug 1766578
FIXED – .startup-incomplete not deleted from profile (fixed in 91.8.0) – Bug 1762043
FIXED – Inserting links with spaces gave random erroneous results (fixed in 91.0) – Bug 1563452

Various minor fixes that Thunderbird isn’t shipping yet:

WITHDRAWN (as of 11th May 2023) – Problem with Google calendar descriptions – Bug 1792078
FIXED – Lost writing style on various occasions, for example after image insertion – Backout of bug 1730429
NEW – New preferences mail.biff.show_tray_icon_always to always show the system tray icon (in Betterbird effective for Windows and Linux) – Bug 1727874
FIXED – Cropping of subject lines with UTF-8 emoticons – Bug 1799093
FIXED – Send progress dialogue collapsed when sending encrypted message – Bug 1777788
CHANGED – Preference mail.smime.remind_encryption_possible set to true enabling the notification for possible S/MIME encryption – Bug 1808295
Other fixes: Bug 1528297, Bug 1708320, Bug 1782415, Bug 1783517, Bug 1790619, Bug 1793313, Bug 1794117, Bug 1794180, Bug 1798597, Bug 1802685

Fixed in prior 102.x versions (Betterbird specific):

FIXED – Update check didn’t take policy DisableAppUpdate into account (fixed in 102.11.1) – GitHub #158
CHANGED – Linux: Using EGL 1.5 graphics now instead of GLX 1.4 fixing fuzzy fonts for some users (fixed in 102.9.1)
CHANGED – Linux: Now supporting sideloaded “application” add-ons stored in betterbird/extensions. To enable those add-ons, preference extensions.autoDisableScopes needs to be set to 3. (fixed in 102.9.1)
CHANGED – Multi-line support when add-on “Conversations” is used. Second line can be aligned with “Between” column. (fixed in 102.9.1)
CHANGED – Improved portable launcher. Can now be registered as default mail application on Windows. (fixed in 102.7.1)
CHANGED – Update check will now handle failure better (fixed in 102.6.1)
CHANGED – Followed Thunderbird by adding an “end-of-year donation appeal” (fixed in 102.6.0) – Bug 1801200
CHANGED – Reverted portable laucher to previous version so add-ons start more reliably without setting preference extensions.startupScanScopes to 5 or 7 (fixed in 102.5.1)
NEW – Re-enable additional languages (via Betterbird language packs) and language switching in the settings (fixed in 102.3.0)
NEW – Thunderbird language packs which are incompatible with Betterbird can no longer be installed (fixed in 102.3.0)
CHANGED – WM_CLASS on Linux is now “betterbird” (fixed in 102.3.0)

Features and fixes exclusive to Betterbird (new in the 102 series):

NEW – Icon configurability for main window and system tray, compose window and calendar dialogues (add/edit calendar, add/edit/summary event) have their own icons. See here for details. (fixed in 102.11.0 and 102.11.1) – GitHub #151
FIXED – Stability fix for folder search and Quick Filter in encrypted messages (fixed in 102.11.1)
FIXED – Issue with complex search terms when inserting a term at the top (fixed in 102.11.0)
CHANGED – Pref browser.download.start_downloads_in_tmp_dir now set to true to avoid .partfiles on desktop when opening attachments from the compose window (fixed in 102.11.0) – Bug 1800328
NEW – Preference mail.startupMinimized to minimise the main windows after startup (aka “startup minimised”) (fixed in 102.10.1)
NEW – Preference mail.multiselect_message_shows_current to disable summaries on multi-select and display the last selected message (fixed in 102.10.0) – Bug 364896
CHANGED – Newsgroup folders now display the last selected message when multiple messages are selected. This also applies when when preference mail.operate_on_msgs_in_collapsed_threads is set to false. (fixed in 102.10.0) – Bug 364896
NEW – Improved display of complex search terms in filter editor, search window and virtual folder/saved searches window (fixed in 102.10.0)
FIXED – Improved the Sending progress dialogue: Incompatibility with add-on MailMerge (fixed in 102.11.0) – GitHub #150
CHANGED – Improved the Sending progress dialogue, no longer showing 100% when sending is cancelled (fixed in 102.9.1)
CHANGED – Improved the Sending/Saving progress dialogue now showing 100% successful sending (fixed in 102.9.0)
NEW – Short date entry in Calendar with formats DD, DDMM, DDMMYY and DDMMYYYY, for example 0505 to mean the 5th of May of the current year (fixed in 102.8.0)
NEW – Regular expressions in search terms (folder search and filters) via “matches” and “doesn’t match” conditions. Note that matching is case-insensitive and is implemented using the C++ std::regex library, which (almost completely) follows the regular expression syntax in the ECMA-262 Standard. (fixed in 102.7.1) – Bug 19442
NEW (Linux) – System tray support for Linux (fixed in 102.7.0) – Bug 18732
NEW – Insert menu for plain text compositions (fixed in 102.7.0) – Bug 230684
FIXED (Mac) – Dragging a message to the desktop didn’t work (fixed in 102.7.0) – Bug 1455429
FIXED – Problems with invalid S/MIME signatures on servers which add empty lines (fixed in 102.6.1) – Bug 1805558
FIXED better – Multiple spellcheck dictionaries not reliably set in new composition and not restored when editing draft (fixed in 102.6.1) – Bug 1775376
NEW – Restored Unix Movemail support (Linux and macOS) (pending GitHub #104) (fixed in 102.5.1) – Bug 1728778 Bug 1802145
FIXED – Folder search and search/virtual folder not working when based on more than 500 folders, also causing MSF file loss (fixed in 102.5.0) – Bug 1554188
FIXED – Status display “Searching…” not cleared when messages loaded for search/virtual folder (fixed in 102.5.0) – Bug 561328
NEW – More menu options for selecting multi-line view: All folders, individual folders, switched off (fixed in 102.3.1)
FIXED – “Open in Conversation” not present on menus when collapsed thread was selected (fixed in 102.3.1) – Bug 668491
FIXED – Fix drag of image from MyPhoneExplorer (MPE) to compose window (fixed in 102.3.0) – Bug 1790291
NEW – Added non-breaking hyphen (U+2011) and em-dash (U+2014) to “Insert Character/Symbol” menu (en-dash was added previously) (fixed in 102.2.1)
FIXED – Compositions using “fixed width” text at a non-default size erroneously downgraded to plain text (fixed in 102.2.0 )- Bug 1786162
NEW – By popular demand, the multi-line view now also supports threading (fixed in 102.0)
CHANGED – Better styling for summary lines in “grouped by” multi-line views (fixed in 102.0)
NEW – Option to send message as HTML or plain text, depending on whether rich formatting is used (fixed in 102.0)
CHANGED – Unlike Thunderbird, Betterbird does not use a threaded view for new folders (preference mailnews.default_view_flags, 0 = normal, 1 = threaded) (fixed in 102.0)
FIXED – Some disturbing error console messages (fixed in 102.0) – Bug 1744944
FIXED – Multiple spellcheck dictionaries not reliably set in new composition and not restored when editing draft (fixed in 102.0) – Bug 1775376

Features and fixes exclusive to Betterbird (already in the 91 series):

NEW – Multi-line view. View > Layout > Multi-line View On All Folders or per folder in the column picker
NEW – Search terms now allow for complex expressions by adding a group feature – Bug 297852
NEW – Quick Filter untagged messages – Bug 683809
FIXED – Global search in encrypted messages (needs to be enabled in preferences) – Bug 188988
NEW – Regular folder search and Quick Filter in encrypted messages – Bug 1562737
CHANGED – Windows system tray (“systray”) tooltip now showing list folders with new messages – Bug 1721063
NEW – Context menu in a news message now includes “Open Message For ID” (message pane only, not in message in tab)
FIXED – New posts in ignored threads caused “phantom” unread messages. “Mark > Thread As Read” will fix corruption – Bug 799040
NEW – Preferences mail.addressDisplayAuthor and mail.addressDisplayRecipients (1 = name, 2 = e-mail, 3 = both) for message list display – Bug 697031
NEW – Showing file URL for detached attachments, correct size and strike-through for deleted files – Bug 1740956, Bug 1741093
NEW – Folder context menu now offers to set folder as startup folder (instead of last visited)
NEW – Add Recent menu to allow attaching recently used files (Windows only) – Bug 1560737
FIXED – Issues when dragging Windows shell link (.lnk) or folder to Write (compose) window – Bug 276869, Bug 524874
CHANGED – Activity manager opens in tab
FIXED – Attachments saved via double-click didn’t get listed in the list of saved files (Ctrl+J) – Bug 1744709
NEW – Ctrl+Shift+Space inserts NBSP now, also mostly fixes “automatic” unwanted NBSP replacement – Bug 532712
FIXED – Copying NBSP replaced NBSP with regular space (fixed in 91.8.0) – Bug 359303, Bug 1769534
FIXED – Repair Text Encoding didn’t repair the subject – Bug 1739609

Not mentioned in the front page feature table:
NEW – Preference mail.openpgp.ignore_missing_mdc to allow display of attachments with missing MDC – Bug 1729221
NEW – Added preference mail.biff.show_for_server to optionally suppress biff notifications for server root folders.
FIXED – Subject change with “new subject (was: old subject)” didn’t work – Bug 1680425
FIXED – Feed reader didn’t tolerate any XML errors; now it will try fetching the feed as HTML as a fallback – Bug 1746749
FIXED – Moving multiple IMAP folders didn’t work – Bug 589008
FIXED – Copying an embedded image didn’t work under certain circumstances – Bug 1760365
FIXED – … and a few more: Comma in detached file name (Bug 350825), Charset forward detection (Bug 1737245), Charset detection (Bug 1746695)