Thunderbird Beta — Thunderbird

Do you want to help the global Thunderbird community by discovering and reporting bugs? Then beta is a great choice for you, because it gets fixes and new features long before they reach release!

Now is a good time to jump in, because through June 2022 we expect the Thunderbird beta to be more stable than normal. That’s because development is frozen so we can touch up version 102’s new features.

Important Considerations

Before you download and test the beta, there are some important considerations to be aware of:

• Beta installation will replace your currently installed program, unless you use the instructions in How to install and run Beta.
• Please do regular backups to protect your Thunderbird data profiles.
• New features may be incomplete works in progress, because some are completed and polished over a period of weeks. The beta forum may provide more information on feature progress.
• Flaws are to be expected. High-impact flaws, including data loss, are very rare, but may occur. Protect yourself with backups. Low-impact flaws may not be fixed quickly, because fixes are prioritized based on impact.
• Expect seven updates per month, one major update per month plus several small updates. This frequency of updates allows us to make fast improvements.
• Are you using POP accounts? Unlike IMAP accounts, the only copy of your pop mail is in your local Thunderbird profile. If you want to add a POP account to beta, your options are:
  1. After set up, go to ≡ > Account Settings > Server Settings and make sure the "Leave messages on server" option is checked, and the "For at most [X] days" option is unchecked.
  2. Keep the default settings. Messages will be removed from the server 14 days after download, so you will need to either stay on beta, or learn how to move your POP data back to the release profile.
• If you have mail filters that, for example, move mail to local folders, then you must decide where to run filters - in your beta profile or your other profile.

Add-ons

Add-on authors are not obligated to make their add-ons work in beta. Some or all of your add-ons may not work. Or if they do work today, they may not work tomorrow. Consult the Add-ons FAQ if you have difficulty.