How's is Thunderbird? Does anyone even use it?

Thunderbird is not a email provider, it's email client. Gmail is both a email provider and they have a webclient you can (but don't need to) use. You can use gmail with Thunderbird, I do that.

The question is what are you looking for a new email provider or a new email client?

Thunderbird will be releasing a mail service called Thundermail.

https://blog.thunderbird.net/2025/04/thundermail-and-thunderbird-pro-services/

If you ending up needing a mail client like Thunderbird, consider Betterbird. It's just a more-polished version of Thunderbird.

https://betterbird.eu/

It's been my daily client for probably 20 years now. My IMAP email account is around 80GB and it has no issues with that whatsoever.

Never understood how people use Outlook. It's so obnoxious and slow by comparison. To obsessed with a "modern UI" or whatever I guess.

Quick filter is amazing, as is instantly archiving to year/month subdirectories.

it's awesome, i've been using it for like 20(?) years.

the current beta version is great

I use it daily it works fine.

Yeah, thunderbird is solid as an email client. Can't really think of anything I need to do with email that it can't do

I daily use it for work. It's great.

thunderbird is great. no complaints here. good to have your own offline copy and also to use openpgp implementation.

I use it, and have for decades. It's wonderful and it just keeps getting better. Buy you own domain name, and a mail-hotel... Then you are good to go.

We are using Thunderbird for AGES. We basically switched over from the original "Mozilla Mail" client that we had used before, and don't ask what we used before that...

But we always had our own email addresses since the 1990s, and our own domain since the 2000s.

Thunderbird is fine as a mail client. It doesn’t provide any email service, though.

For email service, Proton and Fastmail are top choices. Proton requires a “bridge” app in order to use clients like Thunderbird. On mobile, Proton only works via the Proton app.

As for clients, again, Thunderbird is fine. Betterbird is a better choice if you like Thunderbird but wish it weren’t so rough around the edges. If you are on Linux, I actually prefer Evolution to Betterbird/Thunderbird.

I use betterbird

It still works very well and I dare say it is one of the best email clients we have today. For both Windows and Linux.

I use Thunderbird for a decade, not sure maybe less, but it feels like a long time. I use Thunderbird exclusively for mail. But feels like this is the wrong place to ask, isn't it?

Also Thunderbird is Mozilla's most successful product. Meaning it is self sustainable.

it just works

I use it as a client for a company gmail account and as an rss reader. In my opinion, it's fine. Not great, but not bad either.

The biggest pro it has for me is functionality. Mail, calendar, RSS feed reader,.. maybe even more that I do not use myself. And all of that for free.

On the downsides, I'm not a fan of the design, it feels pretty dated to me. Same goes for the UX, just navigating around gives me some 20-years-ago vibes. But that might just be my personal interpretation.

After all, it's still miles better than outlook and their "over 700 third parties" carefully watching over your mails together with you. And since it is free, why not give it a try and see for yourself?

It's used in company I work in. It's pretty solid, given how much data it has to work with, although it's a bit slow. But that's probably combination of shitty workstation, huuuuge inbox, shitty local mail provider and pretty slow internet speeds...

Thunderbird I use each day on my Linux desktop. It’s ok, better than the others I tried.

I have different email addresses I manage.

There are probably dozens of ways to create a non Gmail email, depending on your tech level with domains.

If you want a custom domain, just purchase one at any domain seller. Example liner.me , limer.name etc, there are dozens of things you can choose from and will cost very little to a lot depending on your choice.

Then once you have that , most of the major domain providers offer email service without getting complicated. Or, you can go next level and take your new domain to one of many email companies where they hook you up. Or, you can do this yourself.

Thunderbird is excellent

I have thunderbird running in a docker container so I can use it from any computer I am on at that moment. It dose what I need.

I have it on my desktop, but rarely use email there. My phone uses K9, which is actually now Thunderbird also 🥸

I’m using Thunderbird. It’s convenient for having multiple inboxes and has a subjectively nice interface without much bloat on it. It has a calendar app which is good for planning too. For email, I have a custom domain+TLD plus an account at purelymail. If purelymail goes dicks up I’m not dead in the water.

there are email clients, and there are email providers. thunderbird is an ok client.

I'm using Betterbird, it's Thunderbird but more polished. Highly recommend it

It's my default email manager. There isn't a single thing I can't do with it, whether it's the default version, the improved Betterbird version, or extensions like those on the Firefox browser.

For example, message filters – not yet available on Android because their takeover of K9 Mail is too "recent" – but super useful for sorting emails into the right folder.

With Filtquila, Regex lets me boost that, and Betterbird also lets me remove emails containing any elements (attachments, subject, etc.) from the search, which I also do in classic Thunderbird.

tbh I haven't used an email client that wasn't just a web interface for my personal email since like 2004. I only use one at work because we're a Microsoft shop with Outlook/Exchange/etc.

Proton Mail is my choice for an actual email service.

Thunderbird is very good and new additions are coming on a regular basis now. You can use it with any standard email service, and soon it will work with exchange and hopefully soon JMAP. There is also a mobile version.

It's my daily driver for email, and biggest complaint is I don't know how to change the date format to not be super confusing. I've tried using it for RSS and chats too, but hasn't really stuck for some reason or other. Great for managing multiple emails, though.

I use Fairmail on my phone.

It's pretty good, but I use SeaMonkey since it feels more lightweight

If you want a client to view your Google or Outlook emails, Thunderbird is excellent.

If you want a new email that's worth switching to, go for Proton Mail or Tuta Mail. Both are encrypted for your copy of the messages.

It's okay. Maybe more disappointing than outlook in some ways. It has a weird hybrid approach where it's almost like a browser in some ways but I'm not seeing how that adds to the experience.

Sad it's still not available on iOS yet...

We used it to read old Outlook backups at my previous employer. Haven’t used it as an active client.

If you buy your own domain, you can connect it to an account like Proton or Tuta, making your personal email a little more portable. Last I checked, .nl domains were like $6 or $7 per year on Namecheap. And I'm pretty sure you can link both Proton and Tuta to a Thunderbird client if you really want to. You may need a paid account with the email provider if you want to link a custom domain, I can't recall offhand.

I use it, it's fine. IDK if they offer email hosting.

Thunderbird is great if you like using an email client that looks like its user interface was designed in 1996.