What is the 'thunderbird-qubes' package?

[Villa]

Good afternoon, y’all,

Setting up a Fedora 43 minimal template for my e-mail client (Thunderbird) and I saw thunderbird-qubes as an available package for “additional tools for use in thunderbird” in the Qubes OS documentation.

Attempting to install fails and searching for it provides no results.

Is this a depreciated package or was it renamed? And what additional tools does/did it provide?

Thanks much,
@Villa

[alimirjamali]

While I have never used it, there should be a Qubes specific package for Thunderbird to allow Qubes splitgpg and/or splitgpg2 to be used with Thunderbird. To sign and decrypt signed messages.

I am aware that there has been some recent updates for it for Thubderbird 42 support. And there are automated tests performed for it to assure it works properly. I guess additional information should be available in splitgpg and/or splitgpg2 documentation.

[unman]

There is not a current qubes-thunderbird package.
For a full explanation of the current status, see
Rewrite Thunderbird Qubes extension as a MailExtension · Issue #5861 · QubesOS/qubes-issues · GitHub.
There are suggestions there that might help and might also suggest
why you do not need a Qubes package.

I never presume to speak for the Qubes team.
When I comment in the Forum I speak for myself.

[parulin]

I suppose that there is no mention about this in the docs because no extra steps are required. I successfully used Split GPG-2 with Thunderbird:

Some help with split-gpg2

Out of curiosity I tried to configure Thunderbird with Split GPG-2 and it works. No need to follow Split GPG-1 docs: any how-to about Thunderbird using an external GnuPG will work. Split GPG-2 doesn’t need any extra step! Refs: Thunderbird:OpenPGP:Smartcards - MozillaWiki Encrypt emails with Thunderbird and GPG | Bacardi55's Web Cave Side note: maybe the whole Thunderbird section could be replaced in the Split GPG-1 page by something like that: The built-in functionality is more limited cu…

thunderbird-qubes was supposed to open files in disposables?

See:

Disposable customization

Opening All Files in Disposable Qube

Just to be on the safe side, you may want to open all documents / files in a disposable qube. This prevents you from accidentally duoble-clicking a file and opening it on your work qube. This tutorial helps on that. Reminder: As always, this is the internet. Don’t follow instructions from here unless you know what you are doing. It’s as easy as pasting two files in your App qube (AppVM). Create a file .local/share/applications/open-in-dvm.desktop with the following: [Desktop E…

[Villa]

Good morning,

Got it – thank you!

I was able to configure Thunderbird to open PDF’s in a Disposable VM without issues and without that package using this community guide.

Maybe someone could edit that document and remove mention of thunderbird-qubes?

Thanks much,
Villa