Thunderbird for Android: No add-ons for now, but Exchange support

The email client Thunderbird for Android, which is currently still under development, is to receive support for Exchange servers, but no add-ons for the foreseeable future at least. This was announced by the Thunderbird developers in a response to frequent questions from the community. Work on merging the open-source mail client K9 into an Android version of Thunderbird has been underway since 2022. The main developer of K9 is also on board.

The Exchange implementation written in Rust in the Thunderbird desktop client will make it possible to use the code as a shared library in the Android client as well, the developers explained. Native Exchange support for the desktop Thunderbird should then come with the ESR version 128 planned for July. It is still uncertain whether the calendar and address book will also be supported natively. The primary goal for now is e-mail via Exchange. Up to now, Exchange support for desktop Thunderbird has had to be retrofitted using an add-on.

Add-ons not yet, CalDAV and CardDAV perhaps

On the subject of add-ons for Android Thunderbird, the developers explained that K-9 Mail has a different code base than desktop Thunderbird and that the add-ons are designed for desktop use. They also want add-ons for the Android version, but this is rather unlikely within the next two years.

With regard to support for the CalDAV and CardDAV calendar and contact protocols in mobile Thunderbird, there was a clear "maybe". Having contacts and your calendar centrally in one app is appealing to many users – but it also involves a lot of development work, according to the developers.

K9 and Thunderbird for Android in parallel

Since the robot dog logo from K9 is also quite popular in the community, K9 should not disappear immediately with the release of Thunderbird for Android. Both apps should be available in parallel for another one to two years - with the same code base but different branding. However, users would then have to manually initiate a migration from K9 to Thunderbird for Android. Among other things, a tool based on the sync features of Mozilla accounts is being considered to make the migration easy.

The developers did not provide any further information on the question that probably concerns most users –, namely the release date –. Thunderbird for Android was actually supposed to be released in 2023, then there was talk of early 2024, but the developers let it slip last December that everything would take longer anyway and that they didn't want to do without any features. So the rebranding will come when the app is ready. At launch, whenever that may be, the Thunderbird app will also appear in the open-source Android app store F-Droid in addition to Google's Playstore.

(axk)