Mozilla Thunderbird

Mozilla Thunderbird is a free and open-source cross-platform email client, news client, RSS and chat client developed by the Mozilla Foundation. Thunderbird is a simple and intuitive program, allows management of multiple email accounts. Due to popularity, the program has many extensions and themes, junk filtering ability, cross-platform support, and Thunderbird is available in 56 languages. The biggest benefit of using Thunderbird or any other off-line/local email client is that Internet connection is needed only to send and retrieve new email, for example, user can read old or compose new emails (send next time connected to the Internet) when flying an airplane or in a remote area.

Readings

• Wikipedia: Simple Mail Transfer Protocol

Preparation

To prepare for this activity:

1. Start Windows.
2. Log in if necessary.

Instructions in this wiki are based on Windows version of Thunderbird, but due to the simplicity of the program, Mac and Linux version doesn't differ almost at all, one instruction can be used for all systems. The biggest difference is the installation process; please follow the usual steps taken while installing a program in Mac or read attached article for Linux installation.

Activity 1 – Install Mozilla Thunderbird

To install Mozilla Thunderbird:

1. Download Mozilla Thunderbird.
2. Also available for:
   1. [Mac]
   2. [Linux]
3. Go to your Downloads folder and double click at Thunderbird Setup file.
4. Choose Standard installation and uncheck default option if you don’t want Thunderbird to become default mail client (locally on your PC or MAC).
5. Click finish – setup software will take you to email configuration window.

Activity 2 – Email account setup process - auto

To set up an existing email account - auto:

Screenshot of Mozilla Thunderbird - add a new account.

1. If your email account is with one of the providers included in Mozilla’s ISPDB, setup is very easy; you need to enter your name, email address, and email’s password. Gmail is one of these accounts.
2. After finishing the initial setup, your email provider might require connection verification and Thunderbird will ask you to enter the password again.

Activity 3 – Email account setup process - manual

To set up an existing email account - manual:

Screenshot of Mozilla Thunderbird - manually add a new account.

1. In case if your email is not auto-configured Thunderbird will display: “Thunderbird failed to find the settings for your email account.
2. In the first step choose Incoming emails protocol (it is hardly recommended to stay with IMAP, POP will download and delete all email from you Server if additional settings are not changed)
3. Enter Server hostname (this information can be found on the email provider’s website or by googling it – “icloud email manual settings” for example).
4. In the next few steps you will have to enter port number SSL and Authentication settings, all this can be found on the website mentioned in point 3.

See attached example of IMAP and SMTP setting for Icloud email account, there is no one and universal settings template, Server hostname is specific for each email provider, ports are standard but might differ depends on SSL/TLS setting or your ISP, IMAP: 143 or 993, SMTP: 25, 465 or 587. SSL/TLS and Authentication depends on the email provider requirement.

IMAP:
Server hostname: imap.mail.me.com
Port: 993
SSL: SSL/TLS
Authentication: Normal password

SMTP:
Server hostname: smtp.mail.me.com
Port: 587
SSL: SSL/TLS
Authentication: Normal password

See Also

• Download Mozilla Thunderbird
• Install Thunderbird on Mac
• Install Thunderbird on Linux