Thunderbird 3.1 - New Features and Changes

This is a draft and work in progress. Please add comments and suggestions to the discussion page or comment on the 3.1 RC1 forum thread.

• This article is inherently incomplete and subject to change until TB 3.1 is released.
• Make sure you understand that pre-release versions may be stable enough for your purpose but equally well may corrupt your e-mail or entire system when running into bugs!
  • Do not use pre-release versions in production environments where data loss or instability matters!
  • See Testing pre-release versions on how to stay on the safe side before looking into the release candidates.

Thunderbird 3.1 is coming up soon! While the changes from 2.0 to 3.0 were substantial, this is a rather incremental release, but nevertheless has notable changes and improvements summarized here. Everything in Thunderbird 3.0 - New Features and Changes should still be valid unless obsoleted here.

New Migration Assistant

One of the most obvious changes is the migration from 2.0.0.x to 3.1, which is now better coordinated with other activities. Specifically, password requests and IMAP synchronization don't interfere any more with the setup questions during the migration process. However, you still want to read the options carefully to ensure that you get the setup you want, thus don't simply accept the defaults as they are presented.

Customizable Header-pane Buttons

The additional buttons in the header pane of a message are now a "real" toolbar and allow respective customization. Right-click over the button area and click on "Customize", now you can drag-and-drop the buttons between pane and palette as you wish. The userChrome.css entries to hide buttons as a workaround are now obsolete.