Despite all we hear and see, ‘emailing’ is here to stay. If anything, its use is growing by the day as each users’ inbox is flooded by the day with new emails. That said, do you remember Thunderbird? The email client from Mozilla, which in its prime years was a lifesaver in regards to managing your emails.
Of course these days Google has upped its game so much that its Gmail official app gave Mozilla’s Thunderbird a fierce run for its money; leaving it in the dust. Well, it turns out, Mozilla is working around the clock for a major Thunderbird email client come back in 2019.
Mozilla moved the email client development project to another department, which is given less attention, called the Mozilla Foundation in 2017. By the end of 2018, that department has had only eight full-time employees working as engineers.
On the official Thunderbird blog, Mozilla has revealed that early this year, it plans to increase the total number of full-time employees (engineers) working on the email client to 14. This team will work on “making Thunderbird more stable, faster, and easier to use.”
More Brains = Better Thunderbird
Now that the number of engineers who will be working on Thunderbird will almost double, we expect the email client to have improved performance, UI, and UX. Perhaps, Gmail apps from Google might finally have a worthy rival. It would be also nice to have it integrate native desktop notifications.
Adaptation of Gmail Labels
The team working on the email client are reportedly planning on introducing the Gmail labels to the email client this year. Now, as a Gmail user, I must admit that the Labels are the one things I miss the most whenever I decide to try out alternative email clients.
If Thunderbird does indeed manage to execute the Labels as intuitively as the way Gmail does. Then, the email client will stand a strong chance of giving the Gmail apps by Google a run for its money.
There are also reports that more Gmail-specific features will also be introduced into the new Thunderbird email client. We are, however, not sure what these features will be, as the team has kept tight-lipped on them. But we know desktop notification will be part of it; thus making the email client feel more natural.