K-9 will supplement the Thunderbird experience and enhance where and how users are able to have a great email experience. “Many Thunderbird users have asked for a Thunderbird experience on mobile, which we intend to provide by helping make K-9 amazing (and turning it into Thunderbird on Android). The new subsidiary allowed the Thunderbird project to plot its own path with new features like OpenPGP end-to-end encryption and a long-awaited mobile app.Īccording to the Thunderbird team, talks between Thunderbird product manager Ryan Lee Sipes and K-9’s lead maintainer Christian Ketterer over a possible collaboration for a Thunderbird email app started in 2018.įast forward to 2022, the two have decided the best path forward is for K-9 to simply join Thunderbird rather than Thunderbird building its own app from scratch. Two years ago Mozilla Foundation moved Thunderbird to its subsidiary MZLA Technologies Corporation in a similar ownership structure to Firefox under the foundation’s subsidiary, Mozilla Corporation. Thunderbird, the open source email application, is coming to Android thanks to the K-9 Mail Android email app project, which is joining Thunderbird to become the Thunderbird Android email app.