Mozilla Messaging on Tuesday released version 3 of its Thunderbird e-mail client, which comes with a tabbed user interface and improved search features.
The support for tabs is inspired by the same tabs that have become a standard feature in web browsers and function in the same manner. For example, hitting enter or double-clicking a message opens it in a new tab. Thunderbird will re-open the same tabs that were previously open when restarting the program.
Another big improvement are filtering tools designed for more useful searches. Users can, for example, filter search results by sender, recipient, attachments and combinations of those.
Search results can be saved in a virtual folder and also be viewed using something Mozilla calls a timeline tool. It shows when messages arrived using a bar graph. For all of this to work, Thunderbird first has to index all e-mails.
Mozilla also promises improved performance, stability, web compatibility, thanks to “some major re-architecting”, it said.
Thunderbird 3 is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, and supports about 50 languages. It can be downloaded from the Mozilla Messaging web site.