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How can I get the previous version of Thunderbird?

  • 9 cavab
  • 31 have this problem
  • 13 views
  • Last reply by Wayne Mery

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I have used Thunderbird for years. I recently updated to version 115. I prefer the previous version. In 115, I cannot zoom a page simply with ctrl-+ without first going to the view menu. My two Outlook inboxes are sorted at the bottom of my list of favorites and they cannot be moved up with my other inboxes. I had no problems with the previous version. How can I get and reinstall that version?

I have used Thunderbird for years. I recently updated to version 115. I prefer the previous version. In 115, I cannot zoom a page simply with ctrl-+ without first going to the view menu. My two Outlook inboxes are sorted at the bottom of my list of favorites and they cannot be moved up with my other inboxes. I had no problems with the previous version. How can I get and reinstall that version?

All Replies (9)

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The previous version can be found here: https://archive.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/releases/102.15.1/

Keep in mind that it's not a straightforward operation to take a profile used in 115 and use it in 102.

Zooming a message body can also be done by holding the Ctrl key and rolling the mouse wheel.

Accounts in the Folder Pane can be reordered by drag and drop in the Account Settings tab.

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I should have known better!! This "Supermess" really did me in. Everything is a total mess. For once, Thunderbird was pretty stable and it was behaving very nicely then........THIS! Just get me back and I'll never "upgrade" again. Now I'm sorry that I donated.

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I was fine with version 104 for Linux, this new version 115 is absolutely horrible. Every single useful feature has been scrambled or removed. What a shame. For example, I now have to dig into the menus just to "get mail for all accounts" and that blue button that hangs over everything? PLEASE, that's not the right way to do things. And of course i can no longer manually sort my folders in each account. How do such bad design decisions get made? At the very least Mozilla should make an rpm available for us to revert to 104 I've used TB for many years and If i cant revert to 104 i will go to Evolution.

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Yeah don't try to downgrade unless you have your profile backed up. I reinstalled 102 and it trashed everything without warning. Just a "quit" button like I could stop the carnage. But I couldn't. Then wasn't able to open the old version or the new version - just blank profiles on both.

115 is an ugly mess and handles like utter crap (talking about the Mac version - which feels like a trip back to the 1990s). But I need my email so now I'm stuck with it for now. Can't believe I'm saying this but it might be time to return to Apple Mail.

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I curse every time I have to open TB and am trying desperately to find another program that I can move everything to without losing everything. So far no luck! I see where a new Outlook has been released. Anyone tried it yet? Mozilla has us over a barrel and I think that they love it. Donate more money.

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I have now tried everything that has been suggested here to revert to 102 with no success. David says doing that's not guaranteed, and he's right about that. I have a fairly elaborate setup for my profiles, accounts, and storage locations, and the 115 upgrade has fumbled that all around. I have no more time to waste on it now, but I hope to disentangle it in a month or two if I can find out why my reinstall of 102 makes it think I've installed 78 and then can't find my messages. Does that have anything to do with the hex codes in installs.ini and profiles.ini? And why can't anyone tell me what needs to be changed to get my old profile structure back? It seems that setup info is contained in text files, and anyone who's been programming as long as I have knows how to fix that stuff if he/she knows what to do. At this point I'm willing to hand edit to get back to where I need to be.

The upgrade to 115 made a mess of my profiles, lost important emails, and gave me an interface that lacked much of the functionality I'd learned to use productively.

I don't know if anyone's in charge here, but if anyone is, he/she obviously doesn't have enough experience to be making decisions about software hundreds of thousands of people if not millions depend on. The 115 "upgrade" violates too many cardinal rules of large scale programming. You don't take away someone's tools just because you think you have something prettier. And in this case dumbed down. Way down.

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it is terrible looks same as how they messed up FireFox itself a while back forcing me to go to other browser ... i loved thunderbird but it now is a mess and can not go back to previous version without doing all kind of things that i have no clue how to do .. am not computer savvy and feel very uncomfortable to try to back up profile etc and try to reinstall... Have no idea why a good working product have to be totally messed up just cause some savvy computer programmers like the looks better

Guess am now forced to find a other e mail program again what is like the previous version !!!

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I am now away from home and will be for several more weeks. Fortunately, I did not update my laptop from 102 and can still use it. When I return to my main computer I intend to track down what I have to to get rid of 115 by comparing and editing file trees, and if I succeed, I'll share the procedures here. Maybe I won't succeed, so don't count on it. I am computer savvy, writing programs since 1964, long before most of you were born. So I have some hope.

But I wish Mozilla would implement some of the extended community programming procedures that are standard for any large organization that depends on reliable, consistent software for its essential operations.

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> I cannot zoom a page simply with ctrl-+ without first going to the view menu.

The zoom issue is fixed in beta, and will appear in version 128 in July.


> it is terrible looks same as how they messed up FireFox itself

Thunderbird is a different development team, different company, different funding stream, different goals. https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/about/