Software Update: Mozilla Thunderbird 68.0

The Mozilla Foundation has released version 68.0 of Thunderbird. Mozilla Thunderbird is an open source email and newsgroup client, with features such as support for several mail and news accounts, a spam filter, spell checker, and a customizable look and feel. New functionality is rarely added to Thunderbird.

In version 68 we see a 64bit version for Windows for the first time. This cannot be installed over the 32-bit version, the program will have to be reconfigured. However, a migration will be possible in a next update. Furthermore, it can be managed via policies within corporate environments, filters can now be started periodically and multiple folders can be marked as ‘read’ at the same time. The complete changelog for this release looks like this:

New:

• File link attachments can now be linked to again instead of uploading them again
• Mark all folders of an account as read
• Run filters periodically. Improved filter logging.
• OAuth2 authentication for Yandex
• Language packs can now be selected in the Advanced Options. Preference intl.multilingual.enabled needs to be set (and possily also extensions.langpacks.signatures.required needs to be set to false)
• On Windows a 64bit installer and MSI package are now available, see the Thunderbird for Organizations page for details
• Added a policy engine that allows customized Thunderbird deployments in enterprise environments, using Windows Group Policy or a cross-platform JSON file
• TCP keep-alive for IMAP protocol
• Full Unicode support for MAPI interfaces: New support for MAPISendMailW
• To protect your profile data against a downgrade, Thunderbird 68 may display a message “You have launched an older version of Thunderbird” and will not allow opening a specific profile. Workaround: start with option –allow-downgrade. see this support article for details.
• Calendar: Time zone data can now include past and future changes. All known time zone changes from 2018 to 2022 are included.
• Chat: In each conversation an individual spellcheck language can be selected now

Changed:

• Add-on support: Add-ons are only supported if add-on authors have adapted them
• Dictionary support: Only WebExtension dictionaries are supported now. Both addons.mozilla.org and addons.thunderbird.net now provide WebExtension dictionaries.
• Theme support: Only WebExtension themes are supported now. Both addons.mozilla.org and addons.thunderbird.net now provide WebExtension themes.
• The stand-alone options window has been removed, all options are now shown in a tab
• Changed UI when installing add-ons
• Various theme improvements including a dark message list/thread pane
• Application menu aka “Hamburger menu”
• Improvements when entering, selecting and removing recipients in the Write window
• FileLink: WeTransfer is already included. Dropbox and box.com using the new WebExtensions FileLink API are available as add-ons, amongst others.
• Text and background colors in the Write window and custom colors for tags are no longer restricted to a fixed 10×7 matrix of HTML colors
• Composition text and background colors no longer sent by default. New option in “Tools > Options, Composition”.
• UI improvements for external and detached attachments, now showing as links with new menu option “Open Containing Folder”
• Improved phishing attempt detection for messages with certain forms
• Improvements to scam warnings
• Reply to self will now search all identities (default of preference mailnews.reply_to_self_check_all_ident changed to true)
• Maildir now uses the message ID as file name and “eml” as file extension
• Auto-compact threshold increased from 20 MB to 200 MB
• Calendar: UI improvements for event dialog
• Calendar: Thunderbird’s calendar add-on Lightning now uses the same version numbering scheme

Fixed:

• Column choice and sort order in “Search Messages” dialog lost after relaunch
• Global indexer causing high CPU loads under some circumstances
• Tags set on IMAP folders sometimes not visible to other users
• “Contribute” button in add-on details not working
• SMTP password wasn’t removed when account was deleted or server or user name were changed
• Mbox to Maildir conversion not working if Windows search integration is enabled
• Mails won’t get removed from Trash folder using Maildir. Note: Other deletion issues related to Maildir may still persist.
• When sending of a message failed due a security issue, only “unknown error” was displayed. Now more details are given.
• Improvements of SMTP 5.7.1 message
• Calendar: Multiple connections with different users to the same CalDAV server not working
• Chat: Fixed XMPP authentication when using SASL