Will thunderbird still work when microsoft discontinues EWS
Just got an email from GoDaddy, my domain provider, about Microsoft discontinuing Their Exchange Web Service. My wife uses the web service but I use Thunderbird. Will Thunderbird still work for Exchange email or do I have to submit to Microsoft's extortion and use Office 365?
This is the message I got:
Microsoft will be ending Exchange Web Services (EWS) in the next few months. Your email service is not ending. We're contacting you because your account shows you may be using EWS. If you use a current, supported Microsoft application, keeping it up to date should be the only action you need to take. If you use another email, calendar or backup application, or your organization manages its own connection to Microsoft 365, please review our help article to check whether further action is required.
The deprecation of EWS is currently scheduled to begin in October 2026 and be completed by April 2027.
Wšě wotmołwy (2)
Two different questions. The whole work with EWS is relatively recent and Thunderbird worked fine for 20 or so years without EWS and is still doing everything I want using POP and IMAP, the open mail protocols.
If you are asking if Thunderbird will continue to support Microsoft proprietary protocols that story is a different thing. Thunderbird will migrate to something called the graph API by Microsoft prior to the EWS closure. Perhaps read the announcement/blog post https://blog.thunderbird.net/2026/09/thunderbird-desktop-new-protocol-support-microsoft-graph-api/
Matt, thanks for the response, link, and clarification. Since GoDaddy is my mail host for my domain and I use IMAP with Thunderbird it seems I will be okay. I will install Thunderbird on my wife's PC and configure it for IMAP as well so she can continue to get her emails on her domain.