Thunderbird version 3.1 is primarily an incremental release that refines the changes in Thunderbird 3.0. (See New in Thunderbird 3 for a list of those changes.)
The MozillaZine community documentation site has a detailed article on the changes in Thunderbird 3.1. This page provides a summary of those changes and links to the relevant sections of the MozillaZine article.
More information:
- See New in Thunderbird 3 for a list of the changes that were introduced in version 3.
- See Upgrading from Thunderbird 2 to 3 for help with issues that other users have experienced during the upgrade.
- Thunderbird extension developers should refer to Thunderbird 3.1 for developers on the Mozilla Developer Center.
Table of Contents
Migration Assistant
The Migration Assistant was introduced in Thunderbird 3.0. It helps users migrate their configuration settings from Thunderbird 2.x or earlier to Thunderbird 3.0 or 3.1. The Migration Assistant is displayed during the upgrade process. You can re-run it at any time by selecting .
In version 3.1, the migration options are presented as a series of dialogs, rather than items on a single page, with more explanatory text.
Saved Files Manager
Thunderbird 3.1 includes a new interface for accessing files that were sent to you as part of an email message. After you have opened a file associated with an email message, you can access the file by selecting the menu option. The dialog shows a lists of the files you have opened and a search field.
Message Header Pane Buttons
The buttons (, , etc) that are displayed in a message's header can be customized. That is, you can add or remove buttons, and modify the way that buttons display (text, icon or both).
To modify the buttons, right-click on a button and then click the button.
Message Header Pane More Button
When a message has multiple "to" or "cc" recipients, Thunderbird 3.1 displays enough addresses to fill a single line in the message header. The number of additional recipients is displayed to the right of the line (for example, "4 more"). You can click the "4 more" text to display the remainder of the recipients.
Quick Filter Bar and Search Field
In Thunderbird 3.0, the Quick Filter bar was combined with the search field. They have been separated in Thunderbird 3.1, and the Quick Filter interface has been modified.
The Quick Filter and associated buttons are now displayed above the message list. (The Search field, in the top right corner, searches all messages (as opposed to just messages in the current message list) and allows for more sophisticated operations on the results. See Global Search for more information.
After you enter terms in the filter field, you will have the option to filter the results by sender, recipients, subject or message body. (That is, you can specify whether Thunderbird should only show message where the filter term occurs, for example, in a message's subject line.) If you select more than one criteria, the term must occur in one message field, not each criteria specified (that is, "or" rather than "and" logic).
There are buttons to the left of the filter field that can be used to further filter the results. From left to right:
- Show only unread messages
- Show only starred messages
- Show only messages from people in your address book
- Show only messages with tags on them
- Show only messages with attachments
Smart Folders / Unified Folders
Smart Folders were introduced in Thunderbird 3.0. They have been renamed "Unified Folders" in Thunderbird 3.1. Unified Folders group messages from multiple accounts. For example, in the Unified Folders view, the "Drafts" folder will contain draft messages from all of your accounts.
In Thunderbird 3.1, the default folder view (on the left side of Thunderbird) displays Unified Folders. Click the forward and back buttons to cycle through the other folder views (including the old style of individual accounts).
Message List Columns
In Thunderbird 3.1, you can right-click any column heading in the message / thread list to modify the columns that are displayed. You can also apply a set of columns to another folder by choosing from the bottom of the column list.
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