I’d be more excited for thunderbird if it worked on an open source alternative to EXCHANGE SERVER. Firefox and thunderbird are clients. But it is time they launched servers as well. There might not be any advantage to another https server. But a new mail server with a new email client protocol would be exciting. And maybe a WebDAV server that Firefox could work with natively.
Thunderbird adds native Microsoft Exchange email support
81–90 of 146 posts
Re: Thunderbird adds native Microsoft Exchange email support
#82While its been a long time since Ive used Thunderbird, I just wanted to take the time to publicly say thank you. Many HNers probably wont (or cant) remember the world of desktop mail clients but basically during the height of MSFT dominance there was only one real mail client: Outlook. Which Microsoft was starting to monetize heavily, ignore UX, and keep it windows only (cant blame them for that). Then Thunderbird ar…
I used, and even paid for, The Bat! at around this time, but as it was the emailer of choice for spammers, when spamming was a newish thing, I kept getting perfectly legitimate mail bounced and the developers had to constantly update the client to traverse the anti Bat internet! Which was a pain. I also used Opera email client for a while. Which was dross.
Re: Thunderbird adds native Microsoft Exchange email support
#83While its been a long time since Ive used Thunderbird, I just wanted to take the time to publicly say thank you. Many HNers probably wont (or cant) remember the world of desktop mail clients but basically during the height of MSFT dominance there was only one real mail client: Outlook. Which Microsoft was starting to monetize heavily, ignore UX, and keep it windows only (cant blame them for that). Then Thunderbird ar…
Opera had an amazing built-in NNTP and email client. I think it was my first experience with views instead of folders, so my emails could appear in multiple "folders" (I think now we call them "smart folders"). Absolutely revelatory at the time.
Vivaldi has one now.
Re: Thunderbird adds native Microsoft Exchange email support
#84While its been a long time since Ive used Thunderbird, I just wanted to take the time to publicly say thank you. Many HNers probably wont (or cant) remember the world of desktop mail clients but basically during the height of MSFT dominance there was only one real mail client: Outlook. Which Microsoft was starting to monetize heavily, ignore UX, and keep it windows only (cant blame them for that). Then Thunderbird ar…
>cant blame them for that Of course you can blame them for that.
100% this. It is an error of thinking not to blame them.
Re: Thunderbird adds native Microsoft Exchange email support
#85While its been a long time since Ive used Thunderbird, I just wanted to take the time to publicly say thank you. Many HNers probably wont (or cant) remember the world of desktop mail clients but basically during the height of MSFT dominance there was only one real mail client: Outlook. Which Microsoft was starting to monetize heavily, ignore UX, and keep it windows only (cant blame them for that). Then Thunderbird ar…
Opera had an amazing built-in NNTP and email client. I think it was my first experience with views instead of folders, so my emails could appear in multiple "folders" (I think now we call them "smart folders"). Absolutely revelatory at the time.
It is double weird because unix has always supported this.
I think was an accident of how the unix filesystem was implemented but basically, every file has at least one name but can have as many as you want, if a file ever has zero names it gets deleted. note that every open file is considered an additional name for that file.
By accident, I don't think it was designed this way but as they were putting together the filesystem "hey, what happens if two directories entries point to the same data?" anyone else "We will make a complicated locking system to prevent that from happening" the unix madlads "ship it and call it a feature, hell, work it into how files are opened as well then you can do tricksy stuff like open a file then delete it so it does not exists anywhere in the filesystem but it is still on disk"
The funny, in an ironic sense, thing is that while this this sort of naturally fell out of the first design of the unix filesystem it is not natural at all to modern copy-on-write filesystems, they have to do contortions to support it, but they do because it is now what people expect.
Re: Thunderbird adds native Microsoft Exchange email support
#86While its been a long time since Ive used Thunderbird, I just wanted to take the time to publicly say thank you. Many HNers probably wont (or cant) remember the world of desktop mail clients but basically during the height of MSFT dominance there was only one real mail client: Outlook. Which Microsoft was starting to monetize heavily, ignore UX, and keep it windows only (cant blame them for that). Then Thunderbird ar…
Before Thunderbird, Eudora was fantastic. We ran it at a college I worked at for most of the staff and faculty, and it was a very sad day when Qualcomm shut it down.
Eudora had its own very distinct take on mail client UI. Many loved it. I never really got on with it, although I could use it.
While the native codebase is probably too old to salvage now, there was a project to write a Eudora-style UI for Thunderbird as an add-on. That might be easier to revive for 21st century email.
Re: Thunderbird adds native Microsoft Exchange email support
#87Guess this means I can cancel all my OWL subscriptions.
I'll stick with Owl for a while longer. This native feature doesn't support calendars or address books, making it essentially worthless to me.
Also it's based on a protocol that's dying (slowly).
Good to see they're attending to exchange support, but this is a lackluster step.
Re: Thunderbird adds native Microsoft Exchange email support
#88While its been a long time since Ive used Thunderbird, I just wanted to take the time to publicly say thank you. Many HNers probably wont (or cant) remember the world of desktop mail clients but basically during the height of MSFT dominance there was only one real mail client: Outlook. Which Microsoft was starting to monetize heavily, ignore UX, and keep it windows only (cant blame them for that). Then Thunderbird ar…
This is still the case, more or less.
Outlook has a lot of proprietary Office 365-only features that 3rd party clients will never support. Same with Google Workspace and the Google apps.
Re: Thunderbird adds native Microsoft Exchange email support
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Bat! was absolutely the best email client. ever. way ahead of eudora. it was a massive step back when i switched to my first macbook in 2006 (the black one!) and started to use Thunderbird. That said Thunderbird is fantastic now and great to see it get native Exchange support!
What is it like to use The Bat?
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Re: Thunderbird adds native Microsoft Exchange email support
#90As former Exchange admin/Office365, it's using EWS (Exchange Web Services) which is being removed in October 2026 for Office365. So for most, this is extremely time limited. EDIT: EWS continues to be supported for on premises Exchange and is not scheduled for deprecation.
> it's using EWS (Exchange Web Services) which is being removed in October 2026 for Office36 This is Microsoft we're talking about here, so if its slated for removal in Oct '26, it will be put into LTS, and finally 'retired' (but operational) _starting_ around 2031.
The have been keeping to the timeline when it comes to other recent Exchange Online removals (certain auth roles).