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An Update On Thunderbird Sync

Hello Thunderbird family! First and foremost, we want to express our deepest appreciation for your patience. The road to Thunderbird 115 “Supernova” has been a long one, and we’re confident you’ll love the final result. If you’re already using Thunderbird 115, you may have noticed a feature that is conspicuously absent: Thunderbird Sync.

When we started creating our roadmap for Supernova, our feature targets were ambitious. As it turns out, a little too ambitious. We did our very best to finish up Thunderbird Sync for the initial release of version 115, but some technical blockers prevented us from moving forward fast enough to deliver it to you. Besides, this is a feature that absolutely must be secure and reliable. And it needs months of user testing to ensure that stability.

We do have the basic user interface for Thunderbird Sync designed already. However, what slowed us down is the need to hire a Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) to help us spin up our own back-end infrastructure that is independent of Firefox Sync. While our Sync functionality does use Firefox Sync code, they will end up being completely different products with different use-cases.

When Will Thunderbird Sync Be Finished?

We don’t have a solid release date, but our objective is to have Thunderbird Sync finished in time for the next ESR release, or shortly after we switch to a monthly release schedule.

Once we have a server and a proper back-end infrastructure, we’ll enable it on beta for you all to test.

What Data Will Thunderbird Sync Support?

We plan to support syncing of your email account definitions, credentials, signatures, saved searches, tags, tasks, filters, and most major preferences across multiple installations of Thunderbird on PC, (Yes, this is cross-compatible with Windows, macOS, and Linux.) You’ll also be able to sync your Thunderbird accounts with the forthcoming Thunderbird for Android.

Thank you again for being patient with us as we continue to build the best possible software for managing your email and personal communications. In the future, we’re hopeful that a switch to monthly releases will allow us to put new features in your hands faster than what’s previously been possible.