Now available for GNU/Linux, macOS, and Windows systems

Aug 28, 2019 14:49 GMT  ·  By

Mozilla has released the final version of its Thunderbird 68.0 open-source and cross-platform email and news client for all supported operating systems, including Linux, Mac, and Windows.

Many months in the works, the Mozilla Thunderbird 68.0 release if finally here, bringing lots of new features and improvements. Highlights include the ability to mark all folders of an email account as read, improved filter logging and support for running filter periodically, TCP keepalive support for the IMAP protocol, as well as OAuth2 authentication support for Yandex.

Also new is the ability to link to attachments in an email instead of uploading them, support for selecting language packs in Advanced Options, a policy engine that allows for customized enterprise deployments of Thunderbird using a cross-platform JSON file or Windows Group Policy, and complete Unicode support for MAPI interfaces, including MAPISendMailW.

Mozilla Thunderbird 68.0 also adds a MSI package and 64-bit installer for Windows systems, the ability to select individual spellcheck languages in each chat conversation, support for past and future timezone data changes in the calendar, support for WebExtension themes and dictionaries, a revamped UI when installing add-ons, and a new Hamburger style Application menu.

Thunderbird now protects your profile data against a downgrade

Another interesting new feature in the Mozilla Thunderbird 68.0 release is the ability to protect your profile data against an unwanted or accidental downgrade by using the "--allow-downgrade" option when you start the application and the "You have launched an older version of Thunderbird" message is displayed.

Other noteworthy improvements include an increase of the auto-compact threshold from 20 MB to 200 MB, better scam warnings, improved phishing attempt detection, various theme improvements, UI improvements for detached and external attachments, and the event dialog in Calendar, as well as lots of bug fixes that you can see in the release notes.

Mozilla Thunderbird 68.0 is available to download right now for GNU/Linux, macOS, and Windows operating systems from our free software portal or directly from thunderbird.net. An OTA (Over-the-Air) is not yet available, so existing users will be able to update that way, from Thunderbird 60 or earlier versions, when the Mozilla Thunderbird 68.1 point release is out.