We recommend using Thunderbird in Tails for:
For more documentation, visit the official Thunderbird Support website.
The chat features of Thunderbird don't work in Tails.
Installing Thunderbird as additional software
Thunderbird is no longer included by default since Tails 7.8 (May 2026).
You can install Thunderbird as additional software.
A new version of Thunderbird is released in Debian shortly after each Tails release, because both Tails and Thunderbird follow the release calendar of Firefox. As a consequence, until Tails 7.5 (February 2026), the version of Thunderbird in Tails was almost always outdated, with known security vulnerabilities.
By installing Thunderbird as additional software, the latest version of Thunderbird is installed automatically from your Persistent Storage each time you start Tails.
To install Thunderbird as additional software:
Choose Apps ▸ Tails ▸ Persistent Storage to open the Persistent Storage settings.
Create a Persistent Storage if you don't have one already.
Make sure that the Additional Software feature is turned on.
Turn on the Thunderbird Email Client feature.
Close the Persistent Storage settings.
Restart Tails.
To reopen this page after restarting Tails, choose Apps ▸ Tails ▸ Tails Documentation and go to Documentation ▸ Uncensored and anonymous Internet ▸ Emailing and reading news with Thunderbird.
Tails detects that you have both the Thunderbird Email Client and Additional Software features of the Persistent Storage turned on and automatically adds Thunderbird to your list of additional software.
Tails also tries to install as additional software the language package that corresponds to the language of this Tails session, if it exists. To use Thunderbird in another language, see using Thunderbird in another language.
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Thunderbird is downloaded and installed in the background after you connected to the Tor network.
This first installation can take several minutes. During this time, no Thunderbird launcher is available in the Apps menu.
If you are comfortable with the command line and set up an administration password when starting Tails, you can execute the following command to track the progress of the download and installation:
sudo journalctl -f -u tails-additional-software-upgrade.service
After Thunderbird is installed, choose Apps ▸ Internet ▸ Thunderbird to open Thunderbird.
Thunderbird will be reinstalled automatically every time you start Tails. Future installations will be much faster since Thunderbird is already downloaded to your Persistent Storage.
Configuring an email account
When opening Thunderbird for the first time, an assistant appears to help you configure and access your email account.
Enter your name, email address, and password into the corresponding fields.
Click Continue.
The assistant tries to configure automatically the correct settings to connect to your email provider based on your email address.
If the automatic configuration fails, consult your email provider about how to configure your email account manually.
If the automatic configuration succeeds, you might have to specify which protocol to use to connect to your email provider, either IMAP or POP.
With IMAP, Thunderbird constantly synchronizes with the server and displays the emails and folders that are currently stored on the server. IMAP is better suited if you access your emails from different operating systems.
With POP, Thunderbird downloads the emails that are in the inbox on the server and possibly deletes them from the server. POP is better suited if you access your emails from Tails only and store them in the Persistent Storage.
To know more, see also this comparison between POP and IMAP by Riseup.
Gmail
You can use your Gmail account with Thunderbird in Tails.
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Make sure that you have 2-Step Verification turned on in your Gmail account.
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Configure the new account as IMAP when Thunderbird asks you to choose between POP and IMAP.
Reading RSS and Atom news feeds
On top of reading emails, you can read news feeds that use the RSS and Atom standards in Thunderbird.
To create a feed account:
Choose
▸
Account Settings from the main window of Thunderbird.In the Account Settings tab, select the New Account button, and then Feed Account.
In the Feed Account Wizard, click Next and Finish.
A new feed account named Blogs & News Feeds appears in the sidebar.
Click on the Manage Subscriptions button in the right pane.
In the Feed Subscriptions dialog, enter the URL of the news feed that you want to follow in the Feed URL field.
For example, to subscribe to the Tails news feed, enter the following URL.
https://tails.net/news/index.en.rssSites often have a feed icon that points to their RSS or Atom feed.
If a site has no feed icon, right-click on the home or news page of the site in Tor Browser and select View Page Source in the shortcut menu. In the source of the page look for a link of type application/rss+xml or application/atom+xml. Not all sites have a news feed.
RSS and Atom are similar standards and their differences don't really matter to readers.
Click Add.
Thunderbird verifies and downloads the content of the feed.
Close the Feed Subscriptions dialog and the Account Settings tab.
A new feed account named Blogs & News Feeds appears in the sidebar of the main window of Thunderbird.
Enhanced privacy
Thunderbird in Tails is configured for additional privacy and anonymity.
For example, Thunderbird in Tails:
Removes information about the language of your session or spellchecker from the headers of the emails that you send.
Removes information that could identify you as a Tails user from the headers of your emails.
Only allows secure protocols and disables insecure protocols, like SSLv3.
Disables tracking technologies, like cookies and JavaScript, when viewing emails or feeds in HTML.
These enhancements are inherited from the former TorBirdy extension.
The email addresses that you write to are stored in your address book by default.
To stop collecting outgoing email addresses automatically, open Settings ▸ Composition and turn off the option Automatically add outgoing email addresses to my collected addresses.
Using Thunderbird in another language
To use Thunderbird in another language, you can
install the thunderbird-l10n-lang
package using the Additional Software
feature. Replace lang with the code
for your language. For example, vi for Vietnamese.
Tails automatically installs the language packages for Arabic, German, Spanish, Farsi, French, Hindi, Bahasa Indonesia, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, and Simplified Chinese.
List of available Thunderbird language packages
OpenPGP encryption
GnuPG and Kleopatra allow you to work with OpenPGP encrypted text and files. Consider using Kleopatra instead of Thunderbird if you want to exchange encrypted text and files, but not by email.
The OpenPGP keys stored in GnuPG and Kleopatra are separate from the keys stored in Thunderbird.
See also the official OpenPGP in Thunderbird - HOWTO and FAQ.
Setting up a Primary Password (recommended)
In Thunderbird, OpenPGP private keys are not protected by a passphrase. That's why we recommend that you set up a Primary Password.
With a Primary Password, your private key is encrypted in your Thunderbird profile and is only unlocked while Thunderbird is running. If your Thunderbird profile is stored in your Persistent Storage, then your private key is encrypted twice: once by Thunderbird in your profile and a second time by the encryption of the Persistent Storage.
Choose
▸ Settings.Choose Privacy & Security.
In the Passwords section, select the option Use a Primary Password.
In the Primary Password dialog, enter your Primary Password and click OK.
Importing an existing private key
Thunderbird uses a different keyring than GnuPG.
If you already have an OpenPGP private key outside of Thunderbird, follow the instructions below to export it from GnuPG and import it into Thunderbird.
Export your private key using Kleopatra
From the desktop:
Choose Apps ▸ Accessories ▸ Kleopatra.
Select the private key that you want to migrate to Thunderbird.
Choose File ▸ Backup Secret Keys… and save this private key to your Home folder.
Close Kleopatra.
Import your private key in Thunderbird
In Thunderbird:
Choose
▸ Account Settings.In the left pane, identify the account that corresponds to the private key that you want to import and choose End-to-End Encryption.
In the right pane, click the Add Key… button.
In the dialog that appears, select the option Import an existing OpenPGP Key and Continue.
Click the Select File to Import… button and choose the private key that your exported from Kleopatra.
In the next dialog, make sure that your private key is listed and that the option Treat this key as a Personal Key is selected.
Click Continue, enter the passphrase for your private key (if any), and click Continue again.
Your private key should now be listed in the End-to-End Encryption settings of your account.
Select your private key to enable OpenPGP encryption for this account.
Generating a new OpenPGP private key
Choose
▸ Account Settings.In the left pane, identify the account for which you want to create a new OpenPGP private key and choose End-to-End Encryption.
In the right pane, click the Add Key… button.
In the Add a Personal OpenPGP Key dialog, choose Create a new OpenPGP Key.
Review the settings in the next dialog, click the Generate key button, and then click Confirm.
Your private key should now be listed in the End-to-End Encryption settings of your account.
Encrypting an email
To prevent you from sending unencrypted emails by mistake, Thunderbird in Tails is configured with the option Enable encryption for new messages turned on by default in the account settings.
When composing an email:
If the Encrypt toggle button is on, Thunderbird will encrypt the email before sending.
Thunderbird warns you if you miss the key of some of the recipients or if you still have to accept some of their keys.
Choose Security ▸ Key Assistant to see the keys of the receipts and solve any issue.
To send an unencrypted email, turn off the Encrypt toggle button.