Betterbird icon
Betterbird icon

Betterbird

Betterbird, a soft fork of Mozilla Thunderbird, improves user experience with advanced features, bug fixes, security patches, and multi-row descriptions similar to Outlook. Compatible with multiple platforms and can be used alongside Thunderbird, sharing the same profile.

Betterbird screenshot 1

Cost / License

  • Free
  • Open Source

Application type

Platforms

  • Mac
  • Windows
  • Linux  Binary install, works on all distros but not beginner-friendly
  • Flathub  Prefer the Flatpak app, better isolation
  • Chocolatey
Betterbird screenshot 1
Calendar view with custom thundirbird dark theme
+10
System tray (systray) for Linux
Betterbird alternatives  
88likes
39alternatives
3articles

Features

Properties

  1.  Privacy focused
  2.  Lightweight
  3.  Support for Themes

Features

  1.  Multiple Account support
  2.  Extensible by Plugins/Extensions
  3.  POP3 Support
  4.  IMAP Support
  5.  Unified inbox
  6.  Works Offline
  7.  SMTP Support
  8.  Spam Filter
  9.  Add-ons
  10.  Calendar Integration
  11.  No Tracking
  12.  Ad-free
  13.  Portable
  14.  Dark Mode
  15.  No Coding Required
  16.  Mail Filtering
  17.  PGP Encryption
  18. Google Calendar icon  Sync with Google Calendar
  19.  Built-in RSS reader
  20.  Email Organizer
  21.  Reminders
  22.  No registration required
  23.  OpenPGP
  24.  Full-Text Search
  25.  Email Scheduling
  26.  Import/Export OPML Feeds
  27.  Integrated Password Manager
  28.  European data privacy
  29. Gmail icon  Gmail integration
  30.  S/MIME Support
  31.  Personal Information Manager (PIM)
  32.  Specific for 64-Bit

 Tags

Betterbird News & Activities

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Comments and Reviews

   
Comment summary: Betterbird is widely praised as a faster, actively maintained Thunderbird fork with additional features, bug fixes, improved composition, privacy controls, and a smoother setup. Users value its compatibility with Thunderbird, open-source model, and perceived stability, though a few report serious mail-retrieval or junk-filtering failures. Others criticize its bloat, cluttered interface, remaining bugs, and demanding system requirements, so experiences vary by platform and configuration.
Top Positive Comment
Codex Crypto
5

Today's best email client is also a much better fork of Thunderbird and has more features. What's more, it's open source and constantly updated. This is the kind of development that deserves more publicity and support outside the circle of technology experts. Congratulations to the developer for his excellent work and keep going strong.

Top Negative Comment
DL300
-3

Way, way, WAY too bloated, with an appalling, cluttered, messy, ugly interface. Everything with this app is a chore, and the user is given WAY too many options and settings on every screen - 99% of which are safe to totally ignore for 99% of users.

K B
0

Thanks for the German/EU alternative.

Al MuAr
-1

It's good, but that's all. Because the only difference and inconsistency is in the system requirements. They claim to be better than Thunderbird but recommend having 4GB of RAM, while blue recommends up to 2GB of RAM. There's no problem with the system requirements, but it's inconsistent for them to claim to be better than Thunderbird (which they're not).

Review from a new or low-activity account — shown here, but not counted in the app rating.
Honigkuchen
0

It's a better Thunderbird. Love it.

TheEmperorArt
1

Its Thunderbird but with further bug fixes, additional UI options and more stable imo. Its totally compatible with Thunderbird, so one can easily switch between the two if needed.

gregoryem
-3

Garbage. It stops received messages from servers. We have 07/2025 now and that crap still show messages from 04/2025 as latest one. The worst part is it doesn't even show any error notification, like connection problems or cannot sign in into server. Clicking "download new messages" just do nothing.

7 of 23 comments

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What is Betterbird?

Betterbird is an open-source e-mail, news, and instant messaging client compatible across various platforms. It's a soft fork of Mozilla Thunderbird, closely following its development and updates. Betterbird introduces new features, incorporates bug fixes, and implements fixes that Thunderbird might include later.

Betterbird aims to improve user experience by fixing Thunderbird bugs and introducing new features. All changes made by Betterbird's maintainers are submitted to Thunderbird for potential inclusion. Currently, Thunderbird has accepted these changes. Betterbird includes security patches and features a multi-row message description like Outlook.

Betterbird can be installed alongside Thunderbird and operate on the same profile, allowing users to test Betterbird and revert to Thunderbird if needed. It's fully compatible with Thunderbird's ESR version. Users can install the same dot release of Thunderbird in parallel and switch between Betterbird and Thunderbird on the same profile without any issues.

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Betterbird information

AlternativeTo Categories

Office & Productivity, Security & Privacy, News & Books, Social & Communications

GitHub repository

  •  977 Stars
  •  45 Forks
  •  31 Open Issues
  •   Updated  
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Our users have written 23 comments and reviews about Betterbird, and it has gotten 88 likes

Betterbird was added to AlternativeTo by bigbigboy on and this page was last updated .