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I have been using Thunderbird for many years and am happy - if not perhaps delighted - with it. I went to update my Ubuntu distribution to 24.04.1 LTS the other night. Apart from the fact that the upgrade broke my system and I have had to do a clean re-install, I also got a message to say that from 24.04.1 Thunderbird will only be available on Ubuntu via snapd.

My questions are:

  • Is it possible to install Thunderbird without using snapd? I remember a few years back that you could do something to avoid snapd for Firefox in order to keep up to date with releases (Ubuntu snapd releases lagged behind FFX by some way)

  • Is this something connected with Mozilla stepping away from TBird? If so what are considered the viable FOSS alternatives that would allow me to transfer across my tons of mail and folders without pain? If not what are the next best things.

I have done a lot of digging around and don't seem to be able to come up with a clear answer, but I may have missed something.

muru
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PeterD
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1 Answers1

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There is an official thunderbird PPA maintained by the mozilla team, but it does not have the latest version yet askubuntu.com/q/1513445/124466

You ask:

Is this something connected with Mozilla stepping away from TBird? If so what are considered the viable FOSS alternatives that would allow me to transfer across my tons of mail and folders without pain? If not what are the next best things

Archisman Panigrahi in his comment suggests:

No. This is because Ubuntu devs don't want to maintain thunderbird for so many supported version of Ubuntu, but want to maintain a single snap package

My Own Experience:

I have changed to Betterbird - a Flatpak fork of TB and it really is just better.

Betterbird is a fine-tuned version of Mozilla Thunderbird, Thunderbird on steroids, if you will. Betterbird is better than Thunderbird in three ways: It contains new features exclusive to Betterbird, it contains bug fixes exclusive to Betterbird and it contains fixes that Thunderbird may ship at a later stage.

You'll first need to install Flatpak Ubuntu Handbook then go to Flathub and search for Betterbird

enter image description here

Before departing Thunderbird, go to the hamburger menu ☰ -> Tools -> Export and export your accounts, messages, address books and settings to a zip file and then do the reverse in Betterbird and import them back. This will save a ton of time and effort.

enter image description here

graham
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