You can contribute to Thunderbird by:

• Spreading Thunderbird
• QA Testing - Test Thunderbird code.
• Extension development
• Writing a patch for Thunderbird.

Code Architecture

Current situation

Thunderbird code resides in "mail", "mailnews" and "mozilla/toolkit" directories.

• Code layout
• LDAP situation

Future

• Possible address book improvements
• Menu ideas
• Removal of RDF
• Removal of Mork - See bug 11050 and bug 382876.
• Shutdown service
• Supported authentication methods
• UI reduction

Module Owners And Review Rules

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Mailnews_and_Mail_code_review_requirements.

To get started, see the Simple Thunderbird build page on MDN. The Thunderbird:Build page has some additional hints.

Also, see Thunderbird/Infrastructure for information on builders, tinderboxes, try servers, etc.

Thunderbird:Debugging has some links to get you started. Join us on IRC in #maildev for more help.

If you need assistance in developing Thunderbird, feel free to head to the following IRC channels in irc.mozilla.org for discussion, or post in the Thunderbird development newsgroup.

• #developers, #maildev - Thunderbird developers usually hang out on both channels.
• Newsgroup - mozilla.dev.apps.thunderbird

• Code Name Planning for upcoming development versions