Betterbird Blog

Categories in the address book have been requested since 2001, however, they were never implemented. Outlook has them, the CardBook add-on provides them, but an implementation attempt of 2022 stalled over some UI discussion.

Some noteworthy quotes:

• We definitely want this, not sure how soon but definitely before next ESR. - 22nd Sept. 2022
• I will work on mock-ups today. - 5th Oct. 2022

Just goes to show what promises by the Thunderbird folks are worth.

We've dusted off the solution that was presented back in 2022, but it's only 40% finished. You can capture categories, as the image shows, but there are not visible elsewhere, like in the list view or in search results (Edit > Find > Search Addresses...). So if you're interested in the feature, please get in touch and pledge your financial support.

Update: We added the missing bits: List view, both as cards and table; search, both quick and advanced.

Download: Use "latest build" from the Release Notes page. It will ship officially in version 140.7.0.

Update 11th Dec. 2025: We've tested this now on a real CardDAV server at our hosting provider Hetzner with NextCloud using vCard 4.0. It works. Just for general information, here a table of what works and what doesn't:

Over the years that the project has existed, we've received many feature requests. Some are filed at GitHub (current list), others are communicated to us via e-mail.

The open enhancement requests at GitHub include shipping Betterbird in different ways, for example as Snap Package or AppImage for Linux, or MSIX via the Microsoft store or for Windows on ARM64. Those requests will likely not be addressed without external help.

The next category are (currently nine) enhancements which have been requested in Thunderbird for sometimes more than 20 years. There are a few biggies in there like proper support for RTL locales or Calendar subtasks.

The remaining (currently eight) requests include enhancing reversed threading further, to show the newest message in the collapsed thread root.

Via e-mail we received the following requests:

• CC column in the table view
• Improved detection of attachments of type application/octet-stream
• Integrating move/copy into activity manager
• When capturing a recurrent event in the future, end date should be populated with event date, not current month.

Every time users request in implementation of an enhancement, we ask for a symbolic financial contribution which depends on the income of the requester, the time they will save using the new feature, and the overall complexity of the request. Requests from people who are just asking, but expect everything for free, will likely not be implemented.

A different question is setting up a special funding drive for larger issues, for example, RTL support, possibly via GoFundMe or Floss/Fund.

Right now, well be looking at extending "Search Messages", so regular folder search, to allow searching all folders in all mail accounts. That's bug 131438 from 2002^*). This was requested by a contributing user who wants to switch from now defunct PostBox to Betterbird. This user also suggested an improvement to "global search" (Gloda), to be able to filter the search result by whether the match was on the message subject or body, not just by "From Me" and "To Me"^*).

Let us know your thoughts and whether you are willing to sponsor an enhancement. Click here to e-mail us!

*) Now implemented and available in "latest build" version.