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Thunderbird Desktop Release Channel Will Become Default in March 2025

21 responses

UPDATE (March 4, 2025): The Release Channel is now default! See our update post on how to make the switch with a manual install and what’s new in 136.

We have an exciting announcement! Starting with the 136.0 release in March 2025, the Thunderbird Desktop Release channel will be the default download.

If you’re not already familiar with the Release channel, it will be a supported alternative to the ESR channel. It will provide monthly major releases instead of annual major releases. This provides several benefits to our users:

We’ve been publishing monthly releases since 124.0. We added the Thunderbird Desktop Release Channel to the download page on Oct 1st, 2024.

The next step is to make the release channel an officially supported channel and the default download. We don’t expect this step alone to increase the population significantly. We’re exploring additional methods to encourage adoption in the future, such as in-app notifications to invite ESR users to switch.

One of our goals for 2025 is to increase daily active installations on the release channel to at least 20% of the total installations. At last check, we had 29,543 daily active installations on the release channel, compared to 20,918 on beta, and 5,941 on daily. The release channel installations currently account for 0.27% of the 10,784,551 total active installations tracked on stats.thunderbird.net.

To support this transition and ensure stability for monthly releases, we’re implementing several process improvements, including:

For more details on these release process details, please see the Release section of the developer docs.

For more details on scheduling, please see the Thunderbird Releases & Events calendar.

Thank you for your support with this exciting step for Thunderbird. Let’s work together to make the Release channel a success in 2025!

Regards,
Corey

Corey Bryant
Manager, Release Operations | Mozilla Thunderbird

Note: This blog post was taken from Corey’s original announcement at our Thunderbird Planning mailing list

21 responses

James wrote on

Switching to the release channel by default sounds like a really sensible idea.

How is it going to affect other distribution methods, like Flatpak on Linux?

Monica Ayhens-Madon wrote on

Thanks for asking – as I replied to someone else with a similar question, we’re testing the transition on Linux, and Corey, our release manager, will be answering questions here in the blog comments.

Marcel wrote on

Great news, thanks! Looking forward to that.

tijsco wrote on

Great! Don’t you mean Thunderbird 136 in march (in stead of 135)?

Monica Ayhens-Madon wrote on

Hah, yes, we do! Thanks for catching the typo and we’ve fixed it in the article. 🙂

F.F.S Ayche wrote on

This article makes about as much sense as claiming to make a Riviera on an ocean coastline without using the words “invasion”, “occupy” or “force”.

Who ever heard of the “Desktop” channel?

Who even knows that, as it appears if I’m reading between the lines, ESR is currently the default channel?

WHAT IS A DEFAULT CHANNEL?

It’s the default VERSION!

When I load the Thunderbird download page, I’m not using a remote control to select the “channel” I want. Nor am I “don’t forget to subscribe” to any “channel”.

Stop trying to mask the decision you’re forcing on ESR users in a combination of various backend references and “good news” opinion. For many people, this may be bad news and anything telling people how to interpret news is tantamount to fake news, these days.

Just state the obvious: you’re switching Thunderbird – the one people get when clicking the download button ill heavily push as the default download – to monthly releases.

“Thunderbird is switching to a monthly release cycle”

That should be the heading.

Crikey!

If you must use opinion, try being balanced!

“For some, we realise this will be an extra 11 days of your working year when you want to get started at the beginning of your day, which usually means chomp through emails ASAP with the software itself staying well and truly out of your way, and you’ll be forced to mess about with updates.

We’re going to pretend that updates are smooth as silk; always happen in the background; never require the intervention of I.T. and or waste hours of kerfuffle screwing around your day.

We reckon monthly releases suit our development style better so we’re going to push them on you with whatever PR drivel we can muster…”

Monica Ayhens-Madon wrote on

While we are switching to the monthly release as default, the ESR release will still be available and easy to select on the Downloads page: https://www.thunderbird.net/thunderbird/all/

Wojtek wrote on

Will current users (that are on `esr`?) will be switched to the new/frequent release channel by default? Or at least offered it as an option?

Monica Ayhens-Madon wrote on

Current ESR users will stay on the ESR, but yes, it’ll be offered as an option for anyone who wants to make the switch.

Bruno G. wrote on

“We’re exploring additional methods to encourage adoption in the future, such as in-app notifications to invite ESR users to switch.”

How can I switch from the ESR channel to the Desktop Release one?

Bruno G. wrote on

Figured I needed to re-install from the new channel (re previous post)

Well… With a warning like that (“Thunderbird Release is available for testing purposes only until releases are deemed stable enough for official support. Make sure you backup important data regularly!”), no wonder people are on ESR… 😉

Monica Ayhens-Madon wrote on

The warning will go away in March! But thanks for trying it early!

Andreas wrote on

Does it come with Sync?

Monica Ayhens-Madon wrote on

Not yet, but we are planning to have Sync out of testing later this year.

Philipp wrote on

This is great news!
Thank you very much Corey and your team for the hard work.

I think it will help people including myself to decide whether to change the release channel to know the specific improvements regarding features between ESR and monthly release.
For the start in March it would be great to have a compiled list of improvements made between version 128.x and 136 (and maybe even a roadmap for the months ahead).

Monica Ayhens-Madon wrote on

Thanks for the feedback re: the list of improvements and a roadmap for the months ahead. We’ll get this to the team!

Luís wrote on

That’s so good, i have been waiting for this for years. Will the official flatpak also switch to release branch? If not now, later?

Monica Ayhens-Madon wrote on

Thanks for the question! We’ve reached out to to the release team and they’re testing esr to release updates with the standard Linux install from the website. We also will be testing other packaging formats, including the flatpak, and I will also invite Corey to answer questions directly here in the comments!

Mike K. wrote on

My thoughts on rolling out the latest release and on increasing adoption:

1.) Make is simpler for Outlook users to switch that are fed up with M$. Unique chance now, maybe it is getting late and users will adopt other mailclients than TB and you will have missed it. It is too hard to migrate from Outlook to TB. I just did it and the miration took several days of my time, impossible for most users.
Btw, the Outlook import wizeard in 128-esr failed after 2 mailboxes, there is no restart, progress or error log. Try creating import from PST and fetching account info from registry. If this works flawlessly, TB will become very popular.
2.) Adoption of the latest release will be impossible if Extensions are are no longer working.I will only update when my exensions are ready. Crucial for me “Thunderbird Convesation”,”HTML Source Editor” – should be baked into TB.
3.) Focus on usability and stability instead of endless features. For example, the attachments of PDF appear at the bottom of emails – painful to preview or to save. Many times reported and absolutely crucial. Not a good solution now, this single glitch will keep many users on Outlook.

Patclash wrote on

Hi All,
is there a plan to update ESR 115.18 for user with old OS ;

Firefox ESR 115 as been extended up to September 2025 (It’s currently on 115.20esr version)
https://whattrainisitnow.com/release/?version=esr

Thanks

Monica Ayhens-Madon wrote on

This post on our planning mailing lists explains our decision, which was to end support with 115.15. Basically, we have fewer users on Windows 7/8, far fewer resources than Firefox, who has a much larger team, and Microsoft security support for those systems ended quite a while ago: https://thunderbird.topicbox.com/groups/planning/T6689f5ad30cc4731

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