Thunderbird received more than $ 6.4 million from donors last year, an increase of 128 percent compared to 2021. Parent company Mozilla wants to use the money to modernize the email client and release an iOS app in the future.
The amount of $ 6.4 million, converted more than 5.8 million euros, that Thunderbird has received is due to approximately 300,000 daily users, the company reports. Donors gave an average of $21. According to Thunderbird manager Ryan Sipes, Thunderbird was still “in survival mode” a few years ago. Because of the donations of recent years, this is no longer the case. At the beginning of 2022, Thunderbird employed 15 people. This has now grown to a team of 24 permanent employees.
Mozilla, which includes Thunderbird as a separate foundation, has long paid little attention to the e-mail client. In 2015, the company even planned to divest the project completely and transfer it to another company. Many users then decided to donate money to keep the software alive.
Thunderbird is now actively maintained again and the software is constantly getting new features. For example, the company announced a few months ago that it would completely rebuild Thunderbird’s interface to meet ‘current standards and expectations’, according to its own words. For example, Mozilla has a desire to build an iOS app. Thunderbird is already available on Android in the form of K-9 Mail .
