Thunderbird for Android Community Forum

Short version Why can't I set up an email account in Thunderbird for Android Beta (TFA-B) that is only known inside TFA-B and not part of the Google "accounts"?

Long version...

Context #1 - Windows On Windows, I have ONE login username. Once i have logged in, I use Thunderbird desktop to do email. I have 6 accounts, some of which are xxx@gmail.com, and some are yyy@anothercompany.com

When I configure Thunderbird with those accounts, only Thunderbird knows about those account - they are not part of Windows. I'm certain that MacOS works the same.

Context #2 - Android I have been using Gmail as my email app for quite a long time. I registered the phone with xxx@gmail.com so it appears in the Settings under "accounts". But when I configured Gmail with the other 5 email accounts, they are added in the "accounts" section. They become part of the environment, not just email addresses in Gmail.

As a result, every %^&* thing on Android is done in the context of any one of the email addresses. When I go to "Contacts", a bunch are in xxx@gmail.com, some are in yyy@gmail.com, some are in zzz@gmail.com. I never know where a new contact is going to end up. When I go to the Play store, it's the same thing - I have to choose one of the Google accounts. Same for Google News reader, Photos, etc. The list goes on and on. Everything is tied to an "account (email address).

I'm not really interested in hearing how this is a "good thing", e.g. you can have all of your business contacts tied to your business email address, and all of your personal contacts tied to your personal email address. That's a simplistic view of the world. My contacts are not split along business/personal lines - they are used for travel, personal, shopping, etc. But that doesn't mean I want to download from the Play store or read news or whatever using my "shopping" email address (account) or my "travel" email address.

I'm not asking you to explain or fix any of the above. It is what it is. It's just context for the remainder of this message.

Thunderbird for Android Beta (TFA-B) I've been using Thunderbird on Windows for the last ~20 years and it's fantastic. Today I saw several articles about Thunderbird for Android Beta, so I downloaded it. I thought "now this will be much better than gmail".

The first thing I did was delete all of my accounts from my phone except for the xxx@gmail.com account that ties it to Google. All of the email disappeared too, but that's ok (I won't go into details). So now my phone has only ONE Google account and I want to configure TFA-B with 5 other email addresses. So I did the following: (a) entered yyy@gmail.com (b) it recognized @gmail.com and configured all of the IMAP/SMTP stuff (c) then it said "We'll redirect you, to your email provider to sign in. You need to grant the app access to your email account" with a button that said "Sign up with Google" (d) when I clicked that button, it didn't prompt me for username/password to sign in. Instead it listed the following:

Signed in to Google as xxx@gmail.com - manage your Google Account - add account to device - sign out and turn off sync

None of the 3 choices were to sign into yyy@gmail.com as promised. (a) "manage" refers to the current xxx@gmail.com, so that's not it (b) "sign out and turn off sync" also refers to xxx@gmail.com (c) The only possible choice is "add account to device" and I don't want that! I just want to read email from yyy.com without it becoming entangled in the entire Google/Android system.

It does say "Google - sign in with your Google account" and asks for the email address, but then the only option is "Create account", which goes right into the usual Settings -> Accounts part of Android to create the account. I thought TFA-B was just going to ask me to sign in to yyy.com (the same as I would sign in to banking for example). But no, I have to create a Google/Android account. Maddening.

So this is not going to simplify things. Every email address I set up in TFA-B is going to be set up as a Google account at the Android "system" level, and they will all be choices in Contacts, Play Store, and several other places. That's not what I expected. I am SO disappointed. I know TFA-B will be good, but from this point of view, it's just as bad as Gmail.

I'm guessing there is no choice, e.g. you can't set up an email address in an application like TFA-B without setting it up as an Android "account".'

So now I have questions: 1. is it possible to set up an email address/account in TFA-B, without setting up an account in Google/Android? 2. if not, is this a restriction in Android, or are the developers just doing it that way so it works the same as Gmail? 3. why does Android have to do *everything* in the context of one of the email addresses that have been setup as formal "accounts"?

Thanks for listening.

This is precisely the problem but I can't find any way to get the GCU admistrator to do anything about it

A screen that indicates IT administrator approval is required for the app

   You must ask your administrator to authorize Thunderbird – approval must be done, but only once.
   Per Microsoft documentation, administrators should visit https://login.microsoftonline.com/{tenant-id}/adminconsent?client_id=9e5f94bc-e8a4-4e73-b8be-63364c29d753 and grant the following permissions in order to authorize Mozilla Thunderbird: IMAP.AccessAsUser.All, POP.AccessAsUser.Al, SMTP.Send and offline_access

Hi,

I've recently switched from K9 to Thunderbird. Never had any issues with K9, just liked that Thunderbird was basically the same but without the dated look.

Thunderbird however does not send any push notifications.

What I've done this far: -Re-install Thunderbird -Check if Thunderbird has notification permissions (it does) -Exclude Thunderbird from any and all power management

However, I still have not received a single push notification this far.

Does anyone know a workaround for this? Or is this maybe some kind of bug?

I'm using a Nokia G42 5G with stock Android 14.

Is there a way to change font colors and add/remove bold in the signature field?

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I'd like to know relation between K-9 and Thunderbird. I could't register to https://forum.k9mail.app to chat as no registration email was sent to me during couple of days since I tried to sign up. I don't want another chat app, like Matrix, I prefer forums. Why thunderbird-android on github is signed as "fka K-9". Is K-9 becoming Thunderbird? So why there is Thunderbird beta? Both apps are said to be developed by the same developer on Google Store. I need some additional info before I switch to another all-except-gmail-bloatware email client on a new device.

Hi all

I recently figured out, that the account list has changed. Instead of showing the accounts with their complete e-mail addresses and names, I now can only see a loooooong list of circles with just 2 characters.

I could not find a setting to revert back to my complete list.

The way it has changed is a complete nonsense with my many accounts and all are identical as I guess it is just taking the first 2 chars of the e-mail domain.

How can I get rid of it and again get a list of my accounts as before thx P6

Hello everyone, I finally change from k9 to thunderbird on my Android phone. If everything is nearly the same, I have hard with the two letters given to my multiple email account on the left, in the round dot, all are nearly the same. I can change the color but i didn't find how to change the abbreviation given to them. Any idea where to do it? thanks

I'd like to assign an icon (even an emoji would work) to each account, so that I can quickly tell them apart when I'm choosing which inbox to check. is it possible to do so?

I've installed the new Thunderbird for android (been using K9 for a long time). With both of them now, the initials in the email account icons are simply indicative of the email provider eg BT, GM etc making different accounts from the same provider indistinguishable. How do I change the icon initials/change then to a graphic.

Installed Thunderbird for android, and the reading font is tiny, how do I change the display font size to one I can see. Disclaimer, I'm an old guy and while I see well overall, the font is SO tiny I have to zoom the screen in to read it.

Thanks