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Thunderbird Release Notes

Thunderbird 2 Beta 2 is a developer preview release of our next generation Thunderbird email client and is being made available for testing purposes only. Thunderbird 2 Beta 2 is intended for our testing community.

These Release Notes cover what's new, download and installation instructions, known issues and end user support / feedback for the Thunderbird 2 Beta 2 release. Please read these notes and the bug filing instructions before reporting any bugs to Bugzilla.

Give us your feedback through this feedback form or join us in the Mozilla Thunderbird forums, hosted by MozillaZine.

What's New in this Development Milestone

There is a lot in Thunderbird 2 Beta 2 that we invite you to play around with and give us feedback on:

  • Message Tags: Create your own tags for organizing email. Messages can be assigned any number of tags. Tags can be combined with saved searches and mail views to make it easier to organize email.
  • Visual Theme:Thunderbird 2's theme and user interface have been updated to improve usability.
  • Session History Navigation: Back and Forward buttons allow navigation through message history.
  • Folder Views: Customize the folder pane to show favorite, unread or recent folders.
  • Improved Support For Extensions: Extensions can now add custom columns to the message list pane in addition to storing custom message data in the mail database.
  • Improved Offline Management: Thunderbird (Linux and Windows) automatically adjusts the offline state based on current network connectivity.
  • Improved New Mail Notification Alerts:New mail alerts include information such as the subject, sender and message text.
  • Folder Summary Popups: Mouse over a folder with new messages to see a summary of the new messages in that folder.
  • Saved Search Folder Performance: Search results for saved search folders are now cached, improving folder loading performance.
  • Find As You Type
  • Improved Filing Tools: Recent folder menu items for moving and copying messages to recently used folders. Move / Copy again functionality.
  • Updates to the extension system: The extension system has been updated to provide enhanced security and to allow for easier localization of extensions.
  • New Windows installer: Based on Nullsoft Scriptable Install System, the new Windows installer resolves many long-standing issues.
  • MacOS X Universal Binaries
Rumbling Edge has a more detailed list of notable bug fixes.

Downloading and Installing

System Requirements

Before installing, make sure your computer meets the system requirements.

Downloading Thunderbird 2 Beta 2

Mozilla.org provides Thunderbird 2 Beta 2 for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X in a variety of languages. You can get the latest version of Thunderbird 2 Beta 2 here.

For builds for other systems and languages not provided by Mozilla.org, see the Contributed Builds section at the end of this document.

Installing Thunderbird

Once you have downloaded Thunderbird 2 Beta 2, follow these instructions to install:


Windows

Double click the Thunderbird Setup 2.0 Beta 2.exe installer to start the install.

MacOS X

Once you have downloaded the Thunderbird 2 Beta 2.dmg file, double click the Thunderbird Disk Image to open it in Finder, and then drag the Thunderbird application onto your hard disk. Drag the icon to your Dock if you want it to appear there.

Other Platforms

Extract the compressed archive and run thunderbird

Uninstalling Thunderbird

To uninstall Thunderbird, follow these instructions:

Windows

From the Start menu, choose Control Panel. When the Control Panel appears, double click Add/Remove Programs. Find "Mozilla Thunderbird (2.0b2)" in the list and click Remove to uninstall.

MacOS X

Drag the Thunderbird application to the Trash.

Others

Remove the thunderbird folder.

These instructions leave your profile in place in case you install Thunderbird again in the future. If you wish to remove your profile folder, remove the location described below in the "Profile Folder" section. Note that by doing this you are destroying all of your email, address book data, settings and other information and should you decide to use Thunderbird again you will be starting with a clean profile.

Other Information

Profile Folder

Thunderbird stores your user data in one of the following locations:

Windows 2000, XP Documents and Settings\<UserName>\Application Data\Thunderbird
Windows NT WINNT\Profiles\<UserName>\Application Data\Thunderbird
Windows 98, ME Windows\Application Data\Thunderbird
MacOS X ~/Library/Thunderbird
Linux and Unix systems ~/.thunderbird

Extensions and Themes

Extensions installed under Thunderbird 1.5 may be incompatible and/or require updates to work with Thunderbird 2 Beta 2. Please report any issues to the maintainer of the extension. When you install Thunderbird 2 Beta 2 all of your Extensions and Themes may be disabled until Thunderbird determines that either a) they are compatible with the Thunderbird 2 Beta 2 release or b) there are newer versions available that are compatible.

Known Issues

This list covers some of the known problems with Thunderbird 2 Beta 2. Please read this before reporting any new bugs, and watch it regularly (we'll update it as new bugs are found in the release).

All Systems

Spell Checking:
The default dictionary is English-only. Non-English dictionaries can now be installed as extensions from: addons.mozilla.org.
Extensions:
When moving to Thunderbird 2 Beta 2 from an earlier version of Thunderbird, some of your Extensions and Themes may be disabled. See "Extension and Themes", above.
Mail Views:
The mail views toolbar button is no longer a default toolbar button. Users of this feature must add it back to their default toolbar in the mail 3-pane window: View / Toolbars / Customzie.
Message Histry:
The new back and forward buttons for message history are not part of the default toolbar set. To use this new feature, add the back and forward navigation buttons to the toolbar of your mail windows: View / Toolbars / Customize.
Offline Management
In order to take advantage of Thunderbird's ability to adjust the online state based on your network connectivity, you must first change the value of network.autodial-helper.enabled.
Global Inbox:
When switching between using a Global Inbox and using an Inbox for a POP3 account, be sure to make copies of the messages into another folder.
DOM Inspector:
A compatible version of DOM Inspector is now available for Extension and Theme developers at: https://addons.mozilla.org/thunderbird/1806/.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

  1. What can I do to help?

    We need all the exposure we can get. Make it your mission to convert as many of your friends, family members and coworkers as possible. If you're a student, get it distributed at your college. Submit a story to Slashdot and other news sites about the release. Make some noise on your blog. Mass distribution via the Internet is possible -- look at Kazaa.

  2. Why haven't you responded to the mail I sent you?

    Use the forums. The Thunderbird team reads them regularly. We all get a lot of email and your email may get lost.

  3. Where can I get themes and add-ons (extensions)?

    Extensions and themes can be downloaded from Mozilla Update.

  4. Who is working on Thunderbird?

    Lots of people. See Help->About Mozilla Thunderbird, Credits for a list of some of the people who have contributed to Thunderbird.

 

The following resources contain useful information about Thunderbird:

 

Contributed Builds

These are unofficial builds and may be configured differently than the official Mozilla.org builds. They may also be optimized and/or tested for specific platforms.

Solaris (contributed by SUN Desktop Beijing Team)

Tarball format (README)

Pkgadd format (README)

Other Systems

Builds for platforms other than the trio officially offered by Mozilla.org can be found on the FTP site.