Emailens
Email Clients

Thunderbird

Thunderbird rendering behavior and CSS support.

Overview

IDCategoryEngineDark mode
thunderbirdDesktopGeckoYes

Thunderbird uses Mozilla's Gecko engine (Firefox) and has excellent CSS support.

CSS support

Thunderbird supports nearly all modern CSS:

  • Full flexbox and grid support
  • border-radius, box-shadow, opacity
  • CSS transforms, transitions, and animations
  • position: relative/absolute
  • background-image with gradients
  • CSS filters
  • <style> blocks fully supported

Dark mode

Since version 140 (July 2025), Thunderbird has Dark Message Mode which applies dark mode transforms to email content. It respects @media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) — if your email includes dark mode styles, Thunderbird uses them. Otherwise, it applies full color inversion.

Add a prefers-color-scheme: dark media query for the best dark mode experience in Thunderbird.

Recommendations

Thunderbird rarely causes compatibility issues. Like Apple Mail, it supports nearly everything. Focus testing on Gmail and Outlook instead.

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