thunderbird / thunderbird/thunderbird-android
Poor contrast/legibility in message lists, items look greyed out/deactivated
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- Dominant language
- Kotlin
- Stars
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Description
Checklist
- I have used the search function to see if someone else has already submitted the same bug report.
- I will describe the problem with as much detail as possible.
App
Thunderbird for Android
App version
19.2
Where did you get the app from?
F-Droid
Android version
16
Device model
Motorola Edge 70
Steps to reproduce
Open a mailbox filled with read emails.
Expected behavior
The items are easy to read, like in the promotional images.
Actual behavior
The items are hard to read, because of the low contrast between foreground and background color. They look "greyed out" or "deactivated", like they don't matter instead of being the main content.
Left is the screenshot featured in the promotional images in the app stores and on the website, right is what it looks like on my phone (I recreated the emails):
I've had this issue since I switched to Thunderbird a few months ago. Coming from the Fastmail app it immediately stood out to me, by now I'm sort of used to it.
Seems this or something similar was reported by others last year too and apparently fixed at some point? E.g. #9720, #9596.
Logs
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start by reproducing the message-list view on Android 16 and compare the reported screenshots, then trace the message-list styling and color choices in the Thunderbird for Android codebase. Done means read-message rows have clear foreground/background contrast and no longer appear greyed out or deactivated.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- android, kotlin
- Domain
- accessibility, mobile
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 3/5
- Estimated time
- 1-2 days
- Activity status
- Active
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 62/100