Mozilla has released an update to the desktop email client Thunderbird that brings the version of the program to Thunderbird 45.0.

It is a major update of the application which has been on life support ever since Mozilla decided to hand over development to the community in 2012 and use freed up resources for other projects.

Then in 2015 Mozilla announced that it would drop the email client altogether even though usage was still on the rise.

Thunderbird 45.0

The update is already available on the official download site but the client itself has yet to pick it up. This will happen soon however, and you can run checks for updates with a click on Help > About Thunderbird from within the application.

So what is new in Thunderbird 45.0?

The short answer: a lot. If you check out the release notes, you find more items listed there as new as in the past two years combined.

Customize From Address

The new feature is available when you click on the from field when composing email addresses. It enables you to make changes to the from address that are valid only for the current email.

One example where this may be useful is if an email service supports aliases. If you use Gmail for instance, you can add +text after the username of the email address to create an alias.

Correspondents column

Correspondents is a new column that is displayed by default that combines sender and recipients. You can still add the from column back by right-clicking on the header and selecting the option from the menu that opens up.

The main difference between the two is the arrow that you see on the right of the sender or recipient. A left arrow indicates that your selected email account received the message, a right arrow that it was sent from it.

Better Remote Content Exceptions

When you have selected to block remote content in Thunderbird by default, you get a message in emails that want to load remote content that reads "to protect your privacy, Thunderbird has blocked remote content in this message".

The new control options provide you with granular options to allow remote content.

Other additions

Better support for XMPP chatrooms and commands (Thunderbird ships with a chat component that you can make use of).

The Spell checker and dictionary work in the subject line of emails now.

Dropdown in compose window to set specific font sizes.

Name and email address can be copied from message headers of emails now.

Support for OAuth authentication for Mail.ru added.

Option added to always use HTML formatting to prevent unexpected format loss.

OpenStreetMap and other map services can be used for maps (it is unclear how and where though, and the release notes don't reveal any information besides that it is now an option).

Fixes

Besides new features and improvements to existing features, the team has fixed the following issues in Thunderbird 45.0.

External images were not displayed in reply/forward.

When saving drafts that were edited as a new message, the original draft was overwritten.

Fixed a crash when parsing IMAP messages.

Fixed spell checker checking spelling in invisible HTML parts.

Fixed extra spaces issue when sending messages with Chinese, Japanese, or Korean characters.

Pre-formatted blocks are properly preserved in message replies.

Fixed a issue where copy and paste from plain text documents lost whitespace.

Fixed "open draft", "forward", "edit as new" and "reply" creating messages with incorrect character encoding.

Fixed sort direction change using Grouped by view.

Fixed an issue where new emails were not displayed in the selected sort order.

Fixed an issue with Box.com attachments failing to upload.

Fixed an issue where drag and drop of attachments failed to the operating system folder.

Fixed XMPP connection problems.

As you can see, lots of changes and fixes in the new version of Thunderbird.

Thunderbird 45.1.0

The email client Thunderbird 45.1.0 was released on May 10, 2016. It is a bug fix release that takes care of the following issues:

Drag and drop of contact names to address box of a message failed.

UI element inconsistency when moused over on retina displays.

DIGEST-MD5 authentication in JS-XMPP failed for some (disabled).

Font Indicator claimed for some fonts that they were not installed.

Printing failed in composition window.

Paragraph mode improvements when composing messages.

Automatic correspondents column upgrade disabled.

Thunderbird 45.1.1

Thunderbird 45.1.1 was released on May 31, 2016. It is a bug fix release the fixes the following issues:

The enter-key closed the mailing list panel when adding members to it instead of jumping to the next line.

Emails without HTML elements was sent as HTML email if the format auto-detect option was enabled.

Options applied to templates were lost when the template was used.

The option to delete contacts was not working when contacts were found using search.

Views from global searches did not respect the mail.threadpane.use_correspondents setting.

Thunderbird 45.2.0

Thunderbird 45.2.0 was released on June 30, 2016. The update patches several security issues and the following issues:

Invitations to events could not be printed.

A reporting issue that false stated that there was not enough disk space during compacting.

The dragging and dropping of multiple contacts from the contacts list onto an addressbook while All Addressbooks were selected moved only one contact.

Links were not always detected in the message body.

Thunderbird 45.3.0

Thunderbird 45.3.0 was released on August 30, 2016. It is a bug fix and security release.

Disposition-Notification-To could not be used in mail.compose.other.header

FIXED"edit as new message" on a received message pre-filled the sender as the composing identity.

FIXEDCertain messages caused corruption of the drafts summary database.

Thunderbird 45.4.0

Thunderbird45.4.0 was released on October 3, 2016. It is a bug fix release that makes the following changes to the email client:

Display name was truncated if no separating space before email address.

FIXEDRecipient addresses were shown in red despite being inserted from the address book in some circumstances.

FIXEDAdditional spaces were inserted when drafts were edited.

FIXEDMail saved as template copied In-Reply-To and References from original email.

FIXEDThreading broken when editing message draft, due to loss of Message-ID

FIXED"Apply columns to..." did not honor special folders

Thunderbird 45.5.0

Thunderbird 45.5.0 was released on November 18, 2016. It is a bug fix release:

IMPORTANT: Changed recipient address entry: Arrow-keys now copy the pop-up value to the input field. Mouse-hovered pop-up value can no longer be confirmed with tab or enter key. This restores the behavior of Thunderbird 24.

CHANGEDSupport changes to character limit in Twitter

FIXEDReply with selected text containing quote resulted in wrong quoting level indication

FIXEDEmail invitation might not be displayed when description contains non-ASCII characters

FIXEDAttempting to sort messages on the Date field whilst a quick filter is applied got stuck on sort descending

FIXEDMail address display at header pane displayed incorrectly if the address contains UTF-8 according to RFC 6532

Thunderbird 45.6.0

Thunderbird 45.6.0 was released on December 28, 2016. It fixes several security issues and an issue that caused the system integration dialog to show up on every start of Thunderbird.

Thunderbird 45.7.0

Thunderbird 45.7.0 was released on January 26, 2017. It is a release that fixes several issues in the email client including security issues.

Message preview pane non-functional after IMAP folder was renamed or moved

FIXED"Move To" button on "Search Messages" panel not working

FIXEDMessage sent to "undisclosed recipients" shows no recipient (non-functional since Thunderbird version 38)

FIXEDCalendar: No way to accept/decline email invitations when sent and received messages are stored in the same folder

Thunderbird 45.7.1

Thunderbird 45.7.1 was released on February 7, 2017. It is a bug fix release that fixes a crash issue when viewing certain IMAP messages.

One issue, that the message preview pane is not functional after moving or renaming IMAP folders does still exist.

Summary Article Name Thunderbird 45.0 has been released Description Mozilla has released an update to the desktop email client Thunderbird that brings the version of the program to Thunderbird 45.0. Author Martin Brinkmann Publisher Ghacks Technology News Logo

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