14 DAY TRIAL // Thunderbird continues to be one of the most advanced email clients available for download on desktop platforms, and despite Mozilla originally planning to give up on the app, the company now wants to improve it substantially with updates released during the course of 2019.
In an announcement published a few days ago, Mozilla says one of the areas where the development team would focus is making the application substantially faster.
“This is an area where I think we will see some of the best improvements in Thunderbird for 2019, as we look into methods for testing and measuring slowness – and then put our engineers on architecting solutions to these pain points. Beyond that, we will be looking into leveraging new, faster technologies in rewriting parts of Thunderbird as well as working toward a multi-process Thunderbird,” Mozilla Community Manager Ryan Sipes explained in a blog post.
Support for Windows 10 notification system
Additionally, Mozilla says it wants Thunderbird to be more beautiful but also to support modern operating systems, including Windows 10.
As a result, the email app will integrate the built-in notification system, in an effort to make Thunderbird feel more native on the desktop.
At the same time, Mozilla wants Thunderbird to get support for the modern Gmail experience that’s already available on the web.
“One area of useability that we are planning on addresssing in 2019 is integration improvements in various areas. One of those in better GMail support, as one of the biggest Email providers it makes sense to focus some resources on this area. We are looking at addressing GMail label support and ensuring that other features specific to the GMail experience translate well into Thunderbird,” Sipes explained.
At this point, there’s no ETA as to when major updates would begin shipping, but it’s pretty clear that 2019 is going to be a busy year for the development team.