Thunderbird Is Building Its iPhone Email App From Scratch, With Community Testing Planned in Coming Months

The Thunderbird team says it is building its iPhone app natively, from scratch. It is not reusing existing code.

The team says a fresh start lets it apply what it learned from Thunderbird Desktop and Android. The goal is an app that is fast, reliable and modern from day one. Its larger aim is a smooth experience across devices, whether someone is at a desktop computer or checking mail on the go.

Right now, the team says it is focused on getting the core foundations right. Clean architecture today, it argues, means new features can be added faster later. The team stresses that nothing shown so far is final.

The post describes a few areas of work. The first is account setup. The team says it wants login to be fast, secure and mostly automatic, with options for email services like Google and Microsoft. That covers signing in with a single click or adding several accounts.

The second is connection reliability. The team says it is building a background sync, meaning the app quietly keeps in touch with your email provider. The idea is to keep the inbox up to date while respecting battery life.

The third is the everyday basics. The team says it is polishing a clutter-free, easy-to-read inbox layout and a clean, modern editor for formatting messages.

The app is also being designed so community developers can contribute. The team says it is using clean code and an experimental feature flag system. A feature flag is a switch that turns a feature on or off. According to the post, this would let power users try experimental features early and let outside contributors help extend the app.

On timing, the team gives only a loose target. It hopes to have a first version ready for community testing in the next few months. No release date for a public launch is given.

The team also ran a survey asking people to name the top three things that matter most in their daily email routine. The survey has now closed. The post thanks the people who responded and everyone who has waited for Thunderbird on iOS. It says the app is meant for iPhone and iPad.