Betterbird

About

Betterbird is a free and open-source email client software originating from Germany, presented as a soft fork of Mozilla Thunderbird. It aims to significantly improve the user experience by integrating advanced features, critical bug fixes, and enhanced security patches, notably offering multi-row descriptions similar to Outlook. Betterbird is continuously updated and maintains full compatibility with Thunderbird, allowing users to share profiles and switch between the two easily. Its extensive feature set includes support for multiple email accounts, a unified inbox, and comprehensive protocol support (POP3, IMAP, SMTP). It boasts robust spam filtering, advanced mail filtering, and email organization tools. For security and privacy, Betterbird is privacy-focused with no tracking, offers PGP and S/MIME encryption, and includes an integrated password manager. Beyond email, it functions as a Personal Information Manager (PIM) with calendar integration, reminders, email scheduling, Google Calendar sync, and the ability to import/export OPML feeds for RSS. It also supports themes, dark mode, is lightweight, works offline, and is extensible via plugins/extensions. Betterbird is available on Mac, Windows, Flathub (with a preference for the Flatpak app for better isolation), and Chocolatey. Positioned as a superior and more stable alternative to Thunderbird, it directly addresses many of Thunderbird's bugs and offers additional UI options. While praised for its excellent work and constant updates, some user feedback notes its higher system requirements (recommending 4GB RAM compared to Thunderbird's 2GB) and a potentially cluttered interface. It is recognized for its dedicated open-source development and is considered a significant improvement in the email client landscape.