Release Notes

Thunderbird Desktop

Version 153.0esr | Released July 22, 2026

Check out the notes below for this version of Thunderbird. As always, you’re encouraged to tell us what you think, ask for help, or file a bug in Bugzilla.

For help and a quick start on Thunderbird 153, see Thunderbird 153 Meadow FAQ

For more on all the new features in Thunderbird 153, see What’s New in Thunderbird 153.

System Requirements: Details

  • Windows: Windows 10 or later
  • Mac: macOS 10.15 or later
  • Linux: GTK+ 3.14 or higher

What’s New

new

Visual signatures can be added to PDF attachments opened in Thunderbird

new

'Copy Message Link' and 'Copy News Link' added to header pane 'More actions'

new

Accessiblity is improved in various tree views

new

Added 'Archive' action to mail notifications

new

Add "Show Full Path" folder pane option for compact view modes

new

Unified folders now display account color indicator with account name tooltip

new

Folder copy enabled within mail server accounts and local folders

new

'Reset Folder Order' option added to folder pane to reset custom folder sorting

new

Add `mail.useLocalizedFolderNames' to toggle special folder name localization

new

'Favorites' added as destination for 'Move To' and 'File' buttons

new

Composer now shows a warning if user's configured OpenPGP key expires soon

new

Enabled configuration of preferred OpenPGP keyserver via the UI

new

Add mail.openpgp.load_untested_gpgme_version to load untested GPGME version

new

Added support for generating Unobtrusive Signatures (OpenPGP)

new

Implemented option to show only messages without any tag

new

Message body search enabled for OpenPGP and S/MIME encrypted messages

new

SecurityDevices enabled in enterprise policies

new

Enable support for DNS over HTTPS

new

OAuth login for mail accounts now opens in default web browser

new

Thundermail services can now be used without installing an add-on

new

OAuth responses now verify issuer fields and reject missing required issuers

new

Enable the "Sign in with Thundermail" button in Account Hub

new

Account hub is opened on the first run of Thunderbird

new

Account Hub email manual config option added

new

Enable Thundermail OAuth sign-in with account auto-configuration

new

Address book cards can be copied to the clipboard as vCard

new

Enable exporting selected address book cards

new

Custom Accent Color can be chosen in Appearance Settings

new

Enable support for Microsoft Exchange via Exchange Web Services

new

Calendar month/multiweek views are now scrollable with touch screen

new

Tasks can be sorted by created or modified date

new

PDF pages can be reorganized directly in the PDF viewer

What’s Changed

changed

'Copy Message Location' removed from mail context menu

changed

Read folders are now removed from Unread Folders view

changed

Special folders are now localized based on a restricted set of names

changed

OpenPGP public key no longer attached by default in signed-only messages

changed

Address books are now created in Account Hub

changed

Yahoo, AT&T, AOL accounts migrated to OAuth 2.0 with PKCE for improved security

changed

GMail OAuth updated to use PKCE

changed

Skype has been retired and therefore dropped from Address book IM selection

changed

Removed pref default_supports_diskspace.{HOST}

changed

Removed pref default_offline_support_level.{HOST}

changed

Removed Odnoklassniki chat setup and directed users to XMPP configuration

changed

Use of the string "Junk" has been replaced with "Spam"

changed

Updated about:rights to replace local with hosted url

changed

Stop shipping 32-bit Linux x86 binaries

changed

'Hide completed tasks' now also hides cancelled tasks

changed

Stop shipping 32-bit Linux x86 binaries

What’s Fixed

fixed

Thunderbird could crash when parsing message state

fixed

The English string for the Angry emoji was incorrectly named as the Yell emoji

fixed

Notification sounds did not respect operating system's do-not-disturb mode

fixed

Non-English localized Thunderbird created English special folders on first start

fixed

Copying text from some error alerts was not possible

fixed

Fastmail CalDAV app password access failed due to forced OAuth regression

fixed

Thunderbird could crash in server subscription logic

fixed

Could not distinguish folders with same name in 'Recent Destinations' and 'Favorites'

fixed

Donation banner stole focus when Thunderbird was running in the background

fixed

Unknown command-line arguments passed to Thunderbird did not print warning

fixed

Thunderbird could crash when processing new incoming messages

fixed

Spam messages triggered new mail notifications before being moved to Spam folder

fixed

Web pages with bad certificates displayed as blank

fixed

Memory leak after opening New Window from folder pane context menu

fixed

Importing a vCard only displayed VCF files in the file picker

fixed

Calendar view tabs were not properly keyboard accessible

fixed

Ctrl+S did not save PDF attachments opened in Thunderbird tabs

fixed

TLS errors incorrectly reported all unknown failures as untrusted certificates

fixed

Thunderbird could crash when copying an empty list of messages

fixed

Incorrect roaming data directory caused regression on Windows and macOS

fixed

Changing to new drafts folder and then back did not correctly restore the folder

fixed

Message headers were re-downloaded at every startup

fixed

Old IMAP profile migration deleted INBOX and other mailbox files

fixed

'Search Messages...' dialog could not be opened outside the email tab

fixed

Option did not exist to create new address book under File -> New

fixed

Newly created folder was missing under "Recent" when moving a message

fixed

Could not compose new message if the folder pane was empty

fixed

'Delete' was missing from context menu when multiple IMAP folders were selected

fixed

Compacting multiple folders failed and did not compact

fixed

Shift-click for 'Edit' button in drafts header view did not work

fixed

"Replace All" in Compose did not update plain text until dialog closed

fixed

Status bar messages displayed unlocalized folder names or IMAP mailbox names

fixed

Saved email filenames were not not always cross-platform safe

fixed

Space bar did not scroll in PDF attachments opened from emails

fixed

Folder location widget used non-localised name

fixed

Empty confirmation dialog when more messages opened in tabs than mailnews.open_tab_warning

fixed

Removing tags from IMAP messages could fail and tags reappeared after refresh

fixed

Toggling dark message mode did not restore focus and scroll position

fixed

'Show remote content' did not display remote content for EML message

fixed

Emoji sequences were not properly handled in subject lines

fixed

'Delete' button in unified toolbar could delete attachments instead of message

fixed

"Repair text encoding" could duplicate recipient and attachments

fixed

Some IMAP emails showed current time instead of correct received date

fixed

Deleting a single message in folder using 'Group by Sort' failed after CTRL+A

fixed

New newsgroups were not added in alphabetical order by default

fixed

Sorting by threads only brought threads with unread top messages to the top

fixed

News message marked read after NNTP error prevented retrieval from server

fixed

'Recent destinations' submenu was not sorted by time of modification

fixed

Account column could display incorrect account name

fixed

'Tag' submenu of mail context menu could be populated incorrectly

fixed

Unified archive subfolders could show wrong names and no messages

fixed

Moving saved search/virtual folder under IMAP could fail

fixed

New Folder dialog allowed invalid folder creation without a selected parent folder

fixed

New/unread messages in collapsed thread were not obvious enough

fixed

Pressing Delete on Trash folder could remove it without confirmation

fixed

Renaming of a 'unified folder' created a duplicate

fixed

Clicking on a folder in the folder pane did not always open folder

fixed

Messages nested deeper than 255 levels disappeared from threading view

fixed

Performing Delete followed by Undo on thread parent message could corrupt view

fixed

Single messages still appeared collapsible after thread members were deleted

fixed

Updated threads remained misordered until folder refresh or resort

fixed

Global search failed to display inaccessible messages found in local folders

fixed

Numeric subfolders were sorted alphabetically instead of naturally

fixed

Virtual folder folder-picker showed unlabeled IM account as selectable folder

fixed

Some folders showed new mail count prior to receiving mail

fixed

Menu Bar -> View contained duplicate accelerator keys

fixed

Unified toolbar Spam button did not switch to "Not Spam" when spam message selected

fixed

Warning was not logged if mail.openpgp.alias_rules_file file did not exist

fixed

Not all headers were signed when creating digitally signed OpenPGP email

fixed

When configuring external GnuPG, user was not promted to import public key

fixed

"Open and Show" for OpenPGP-signed message (.eml) did not work

fixed

Invalidly signed unencrypted emails were indicated as worse than unsigned ones

fixed

Reason for revoked certificate was not shown

fixed

Apple Mail OpenPGP emails failed to decrypt due to hidden recipient key ID

fixed

OpenPGP import of public key with experimental packets failed with unclear error

fixed

Opening messages with OpenPGP keys was slow and blocked the UI for large keyrings

fixed

OpenPGP key refresh failed when fingerprint lookup returned multiple results

fixed

Encrypted Gmail CSE emails with outer opaque S/MIME were not readable

fixed

Invalid S/MIME encryption certificate caused misleading send errors

fixed

"Search Messages" search did not finish due to unparsable local folders

fixed

Search results showed older irrelevant emails before newer exact matches

fixed

Filter search on Body missed draft messages containing German umlauts

fixed

Esc cleared quick filter pin after changing folder

fixed

Thunderbird could crash during local message search

fixed

Replying could fail with mailnews.reply_quoting_selection.multi_word set false

fixed

Drag-drop of unselected contact inserted wrong or no email address

fixed

Changing identity in compose window caused modified draft not to be saved

fixed

Shift-click 'Compose Message To' on 'mailto' link did not open in plain text

fixed

Reply with selected text lost formatting for HTML messages containing </pre>

fixed

Multipart/related attachments were not preserved when editing or forwarding

fixed

Forwarded malformed MIME email had empty body and extra attachment

fixed

Message compose window was removed from Task Bar after saving as draft or template

fixed

Dragging email address between compose windows failed to add recipients

fixed

Thunderbird could crash when using Find and Replace All

fixed

Compose with PDF attachments opened PDFs instead of creating a new email

fixed

Multiple saves while using 'Options' -> 'Send a Copy' resulted in multiple copies

fixed

Search for "Attachment" in Settings menu did not find "Files and Attachments"

fixed

Add-on account creation did not work with Account Hub

fixed

Owl install did not show link to website in Account Hub

fixed

Username field did not appear in Account Hub when exchange authentication failed

fixed

Account Hub advanced config setup did not include default outgoing config

fixed

Disabled inputs could be toggled in Account Hub address book

fixed

Users could not disable spinning overlay in Account Hub for email

fixed

Account Hub local address book creation could continue with blank name

fixed

Account Hub email success messages were not always accurate about config source

fixed

Calendar/address book sections were shown in Account Hub when there were none

fixed

New password-based Exchange accounts failed to save passwords in login manager

fixed

Account hub showed connection security instead of actual authentication method

fixed

New identity dialog lacked reply-matching and end-to-end encryption settings

fixed

Thunderbird could fail to shut down cleanly during active OAuth requests

fixed

Account Hub kept OAuth selected after changing to hostname without OAuth support

fixed

Account Hub autodetect wrongly prompted for a password when auth was unavailable

fixed

Interrupted external OAuth2 setup required restarting Thunderbird

fixed

The default account could be reset after restart if uninitialized

fixed

Virtual folders did not update correctly for filtered POP3 messages

fixed

'Copy Message to' action in a newsgroup filter did not work

fixed

Thunderbird could crash while importing mail thread

fixed

Thunderbird did not clearly fail when importing profile from a bad source

fixed

Thunderbird could not import profile located at the top level of zip file

fixed

'Any Number' was unavailable in address book search with 'Match all of the following'

fixed

Contact not found in Advanced Address Book Search if phone number had a period

fixed

Thunderbird did not display contact photos in WebP format from CardDAV servers

fixed

Opening a vCard (.vcf) from file manager or CLI did not work in some cases

fixed

Redirected CardDAV URLs resolved relative URLs against the wrong host

fixed

Installations from Microsoft Store did not open when clicking 'mailto:' links

fixed

Windows new message notification click did not bring Thunderbird to foreground

fixed

Microsoft Store installs did not open when clicking 'news://' link or .eml file

fixed

Using thunderbird -compose with double quotes made last email address invalid

fixed

Clicking the backspace icon in the quick filter field cleared the input field

fixed

Subfolder kept stale accessibility unread count after unread messages were deleted

fixed

Moving virtual folder within maildir based IMAP or local folder could fail

fixed

Thunderbird could crash when completing folder copy/move

fixed

'Edit as New Message' and inline 'Forward' not possible with PGP-signed messages

fixed

Various MIME improvements

fixed

Forwarding some Apple Mail messages incorrectly attached inline text as a file

fixed

Thunderbird could crash when marking all messages as read

fixed

Auto-compaction could corrupt database and cause crashes during syncs

fixed

'news:' URIs without specific server had incorrect format displayed in status bar

fixed

'Mark' -> 'All Read' affected newsgroup messages that had not been fetched yet

fixed

Thunderbird could not reconnect to newsgroups after connection loss until restarted

fixed

Sending a newsgroup post appeared successful when it had actually failed

fixed

Saving a new draft retained superceded version

fixed

Thunderbird hung when auto-checking multiple accounts for new messages

fixed

Spam not checked with mail.server.default.check_all_folders_for_new on

fixed

Startup could be slow with large number of folders not using subscriptions

fixed

Saved search in unified folder resulted in server error

fixed

Thunderbird did not report refused POP3 connection

fixed

Remove message body retention policy was not functional

fixed

POP3 could stop downloading mail until restart

fixed

With auto-mark-read disabled, large mail still marked as read during load delay

fixed

IMAP "Show only subscribed folders" could not be changed without restart

fixed

POP3 deadlocked when server went silent without closing socket

fixed

Thunderbird could crash when mail folder was renamed or moved

fixed

NNTP server with invalid TLS certificate could not be added to certificate exceptions

fixed

Cancelled message send could not be retried and hung with SMTP timeout errors

fixed

Corrupted NNTP account data caused excessive memory use and startup crash

fixed

Multiple selected IMAP folders could not be moved or deleted together

fixed

Non-Latin IMAP keywords were lowercased and encoded incorrectly as MUTF-7

fixed

Message tags were lost when moving folder from local folder to IMAP folder

fixed

Removing a chat account threw an exception and failed to clear the UI

fixed

Enterprise policy use not indicated in about:preferences with link to about:policies

fixed

Language field in settings was empty after restart in Troubleshoot Mode

fixed

Primary Password policy was detected but not enforced for saved account passwords

fixed

Archived RSS feed messages were sent to the archive folder of default identity

fixed

Broken feed icon could prevent updating of feeds

fixed

Task reminders could fail for tasks without end dates or with shifted due dates

fixed

Calendar did not alert user for connection issues

fixed

Copying one recurring event occurrence failed to set the date when pasted

fixed

Could not copy an event in multiweek or month view by drag-and-drop

fixed

Duplicate attendees were added to invitations instead of being filtered out

fixed

Calendar discovery with certificate error displayed multiple exceptions

fixed

It was not possible to create date-only all-day tasks

fixed

Task percentage complete was not preserved separately from status in tooltips

fixed

Calendar invites were incorrectly marked processed after calendar sync completed

fixed

ICS event comments were not displayed in Thunderbird event details

fixed

Dismissed Gmail calendar reminder did nothing and item stayed visible

fixed

iCal imports misread unknown timezones as GMT, creating events at wrong times

fixed

Could not export local calendar as HTML

fixed

Cancelled filter edit dialog closed the message filter dialog

fixed

Visual and UX improvements

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