Mozilla’s excellent email client, Thunderbird, has released its latest version, 3.0, yesterday, and its loaded with new features, the most important being the revamped search function, tabs, and a new setup wizard allowing users to create new accounts easily.
Thunderbird 3.0 viewing a message with threaded view enabled and the default theme
The best new feature of this release would have to go to the brand new search functions. On the search results tab, you will find a large number of options to filter and limit your search including by person, folder, account, and by date. Filters can be applied through the sidebar and from the message count graph that slides down when the graph button is clicked on.
The new search results page for Thunderbird
Gmail Specific Folders in Thunderbird.
Thunderbird will have to index the messages before they can be found in search, so the search might not find anything during the first few minutes after downloading an email message.
Thunderbird also features tighter integration with Gmail including supporting Gmail’s special built in folders, such as All Mail. In the screenshot to the right, you can see that Thunderbird added Gmail special folders as well as my labels.
Unfortunately, this does not seem to work with Google Apps powered emails, which are basically the same as Gmail. Tech Airlines Mail is powered by Google, however, it did not detect Gmail folders.
Like Mozilla Firefox, Thunderbird is extremely customizable with a large collection of add-ons, from Adblock Plus to Personas to themes. Unlike Thunderbird 2 where users must download the extension in a browser and then install by opening it, Thunderbird 3 features a built in extension browser, something that was first introduced with Firefox 3.0.
The new Thunderbird addons window is similar to Firefox 3.0+
Thunderbird 3.0 was originally planned to ship with the Lightning Calendar extension, however plans for that were dropped, however this extension can still be downloaded and installed separately.
When you get a new email, Thunderbird will play a notification sound and display a window in the corner that looks something like this.
Thunderbird New Mail Notification
Something I would like to see in future versions of Thunderbird is Gmail style message threading. The built in threaded message view simply stacks messages in a tree structure, however viewing the message still looks like typical emails.
Mozilla Thunderbird 3.0 Rating:
Performance: 4.8
Features: 5
Ease of Use: 4.5
Value for Money: 5
Appearance: 5
Final Rating: 4.825
Mozilla Thunderbird 3.0 is an excellent alternative to other applications such as Microsoft Outlook and it is definitely worthy of trying.
Mozilla Thunder 3.0 Download (Mozilla Messaging)
Supports Windows, Mac, and Linux
I love Thunderbird… Especially the power of the filters you can create to sort your mail… However, the biggest pitfall that I have found with it is that it doesn’t allow you to minimize it to the tray.
I mean, there are “addon” programs out there that will add this type of feature, but I think it should be standard in the app itself. This way you can leave your mail open at all times and receive little updates when you get a new email in real time.
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