When comparing Mozilla Thunderbird vs Canary Mail, the Slant community recommends Mozilla Thunderbird for most people. In the question“What are the best e-mail clients for macOS?” Mozilla Thunderbird is ranked 4th while Canary Mail is ranked 7th.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Free (as in freedom and beer)
Pro Available on Linux, OS X and Windows
Pro Very reliable
Version after version, Mozilla Thunderbird works as expected.
Pro Good filtering system
Mozilla Thunderbird offers a flexible filtering system with the ability to set flags and read/unread, as well as sort/assign to new mail directories. There are also numerous plugins available to assist in the filtering.
Pro Large assortment of plugins available
Mozilla Thunderbird offers a huge amount of extensions to expand the usability and options of the client.
Pro Great flexibility
More options and extended settings than most power users could dream of. Get it working how YOU want.
Pro Tabs for navigation
Pro Lightning Calendar and Address Book integration
Pro Consistent and involving a moderate learning curve
The app design of Mozilla Thunderbird has not changed significantly since its beginning, making its learning curve almost non-existent.
Pro Send large files easy
Install pCloud plugin for Thunderbird and your files (upto 20 GB free storage included) will be received as download links
Pro Multiple Signatures for Multiple Accounts including ALIASES
You can assign your default signature to an ALIAS for the same account or create an altogether new one.
Pro No personal data stored on servers
No access tokens, passwords, attachments or email itself is stored on Canary servers.
Pro Seamlessly integrates with iOS verion
Gone are the days of manual setup of phone email clients! Canary Mail syncs not just your accounts but all of your settings and even signatures on iCloud.
Pro Local email database is encrypted on disk
Canary stores your local email database encrypted.
Pro Gorgeous and intuitive
Pro Pretty Good Privacy or PGP built-in
Cons
Con Development slowed to only focus on stability and security
Mozilla Thunderbird has slowed down its development of features to only focus resources on security and stability.
Con Outdated interface
Thunderbird's interface is very outdated and unpleasant. It feels more like a Windows XP application than like a modern MacOS one.
Con Terrible integration with macOS
Simple things - drag/dropping pictures doesn't work, for instance.
Con Subject lines can (temporarily) disappear from the list
This is sporadic behavior.
Con Serious bugs
Clicking on a subject line can bring up the wrong email.
Con Missing mainstream features
No functionality for user-defined Gmail message-tagging, or moving/copying to IMAP folders. Might be acceptable in a free app, but not in one with premium pricing.
Con Buggy
It adds random pins to old emails which then stay on top of the inbox list
Con Poor handling of new emails
You sometimes need to wait very long before your email actually gets delivered.
Con Windows moves randomly
When you create a new email, the new windows is often misplaced so that you have to move it to reach the "Send" button.
Con Poor text editing capabilities
The cursor is laggy so you're better off using keyboard shortcuts.
Con Show NO show
It'll show a new email on a counter, but you're not able to view them.