Thunderbird: The Perfect Email Companion on Your Braille Computer

BT Speak and BT Braille computers include Mozilla Thunderbird, a well-established, mainstream email application used by millions of people worldwide. Thunderbird makes it easy to send and receive email and to manage multiple accounts in one place- personal, work, or school- without imposing subscriptions or ongoing fees. Because Thunderbird is free and open-source, it helps keep costs down for individual users and for organizations deploying BT Speak devices.

Thunderbird also benefits from a large and active user community. This means frequent updates, regular security improvements, and ongoing refinements to usability and reliability. Just as importantly, choosing a widely adopted email client allows us to rely on a mature platform that already keeps pace with evolving email standards.

By integrating Thunderbird, we’re able to focus our development efforts on accessibility, usability, and workflow, while relying on a proven, actively maintained application to handle the complexity of modern email.

Setting Up an Email Account

Getting started with Thunderbird is straightforward. The first time you open the application, you’re guided through setting up an account. You’ll enter the name you want recipients to see, your email address, and your password. For some providers, such as Google, Thunderbird opens a secure web sign-in page so you can confirm your identity and grant access to your mailbox.

Thunderbird supports multiple accounts, making it easy to manage all of your email from a single interface.

Composing and Sending Email

Writing and sending a message follows familiar, predictable steps. You can open a new message using Ctrl+N, enter the recipient, add a subject, and type your message. Clear focus cues and consistent keyboard shortcuts help keep the experience efficient and easy to follow.

The goal is to let users focus on writing their message, not on navigating complex menus or remembering obscure commands.

Simplified Composition in Blazie Mode

BT Speak includes a simplified Thunderbird interface in Blazie mode that streamlines composition. From Blazie mode, you can start composing with a single command, enter recipients and choose whether to type a quick message or use a file. If you prefer, you can even write your message in a file using contracted Braille. Once you select the file or finish typing, Blazie mode hands the draft to Thunderbird so you can send it without switching through many screens. This keeps composition accessible and efficient.

Emailing a File from the File Browser

Sending the contents of a file by email is also integrated into the BT Speak file browser. Simply navigate to the folder containing your document, select the file, and press E to email it. You’ll be prompted for the recipient’s address, subject, and other details, and then taken into Thunderbird to review and send the message.

If the file is written in contracted Braille, it is automatically translated into plain text before sending. This means you can comfortably write using the Braille contractions supported by your current table, without any extra steps.

This file-first workflow is especially useful when you already have a document prepared and want to send it quickly.

Why This Approach Matters

Using Thunderbird with BT Speak gives you the best of both worlds. You get a reliable, widely used email program that’s actively maintained, while enjoying workflows designed specifically for braille computer users.

The result is an email experience that’s simple, dependable, and built to last. It combines a trusted mainstream client with the accessibility and workflow BT Speak users rely on every day.