Welcome to the Tutorial on Introduction to Mozilla Thunderbird
In this tutorial we will learn about Mozilla Thunderbird and
How to download, install and launch Thunderbird.
We will also learn how to:
Configure a new email account Download and read messages
Compose and send mail messages Log out of Thunderbird
Mozilla Thunderbird,Is a simple email client.
It is a cross platform software, which means it can run on various operating systems.
It allows you to download email messages
From your other mail accounts To your local computer.
It also lets you manage multiple email accounts.
Thunderbird also has some advanced features.
You can import all your email data like Mail folders and Address book from other mail accounts like Gmail, Yahoo and Eudora
If you use POP3, you can
Combine all POP3 accounts into a Single Inbox in Thunderbird.
You can group messages by attributes such as
Date, Sender,Priority or a Custom label.
Here we are using Mozilla Thunderbird 13.0.1 on Ubuntu 12.04.
If you do not have Mozilla Thunderbird installed on your computer, you can install it by using Ubuntu Software Centre.
For more information on Ubuntu Software Centre,Please visit this website.
You can also download and install Thunderbird from the Mozilla website.
Mozilla Thunderbird is also available for
Microsoft Windows 2000 or later versions such as MS Windows XP or MS Windows 7.
For more information about this, please visit the Mozilla website.
To use Mozilla Thunderbird,You must have at least two valid email addresses.
You must also ensure that POP3 option is enabled in the email accounts
And you must ensure that you are connected to the Internet.
Let’s launch Thunderbird.
First, click on Dash Home, which is the round button, on the top left corner of your computer desktop.
The Search box appears.
Now type Thunderbird. The Thunderbird icon appears.
Click on it to open the application.
The Mail Account Setup dialogue box opens.
Let’s close this by clicking on the Red Cross button on the top-left.
The Mozilla Thunderbird application opens.
First, let’s familiarise ourselves with the Mozilla Thunderbird interface.
The Mozilla Thunderbird interface has a Main menu with various options.
Short cut icons are available below the Main menu on the Menu bar.
For example, there are shortcut icons for Get Mail, Write, and Address Book.
Thunderbird is divided into two panels.
The left panel displays the folders in your Thunderbird account.
As we have not configured a mail account yet, this panel will not display any folders now.
The right panel consists of options for Email, Accounts, Advanced Features and so on.
For the purpose of this tutorial, we have already
Created two email accounts.for the purpose of this tutorial. They are:
STUSERONE at gmail dot com STUSERTWO at yahoo dot in
We recommend that you use 2 of your email accounts.
I have also enabled the POP3 option in these two mail accounts.
How did I enable POP3 in Gmail?
First, login to the Gmail account.
Open a fresh browser and in the address bar type www.gmail.com.
Now enter the user name STUSERONE at gmail dot com and then the password.
Click on the Settings icon on the top-right of the Gmail window. Click on the Settings option.
The Settings window appears. Click the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab.
In the POP download, I have selected Enable POP for all mail'.
Then click Save Changes.
The Gmail Mail window appears.
POP3 is now enabled in Gmail!
Let’s log out of Gmail and close this browser.
Let’s configure the STUSERONE at gmail dot com account in Thunderbird.
Gmail accounts are automatically configured by Thunderbird.
We shall learn about manual configurations for other email accounts in later tutorials.
First, make sure that your network connection is configured correctly.
From the Main menu, select Edit and Preferences.
The Thunderbird Preferences dialog box appears.
Click on Advanced, select Network and DiskSpace tab and click Settings.
In the Connection Settings dialog box, select the Use system proxy settings option.
Click OK.Click Close.
Now, let’s create a new account using the Accounts option.
From the right panel of the Thunderbird under Accounts, click Create a New Account.
The Mail Account Setup dialog box appears.
Enter the Name as STUSERONE.
Enter the Email address as STUSERONE at gmail dot com.
And, finally, enter the password of the Gmail account.
Next, click on Continue.
The message Configuration found in Mozilla ISP database appears.
Next, select POP3.
Some times an Error message,
Thunderbird failed to find the settings may be displayed
This indicates, that Thunderbird was not able to configure Gmail settings automatically.
In such a case, you must configure the settings manually.
Now, click on the Manual Config button.
The configuration settings for Gmail are displayed.
As Thunderbird has already configured Gmail settings correctly, we will not change them.
Pause this video and make a note of these settings.
To configure Gmail manually, you must enter these settings in the respective fields.
When the settings are configured manually, the Create Account button is enabled.
In this tutorial, Thunderbird has configured Gmail correctly.
So, let’s click Create Account.
This could take a few minutes depending on your Internet speed.
The Gmail account is created and is displayed on the right panel.
Note, that the left panel now displays the Email ID STUSERONE at gmail dot com.
Under this Gmail account, various mail folders are displayed.
Now, from the left panel, under the Gmail account, click Inbox.Click the Get Mail icon.
Note the status bar at the bottom of the Thunderbird window.
It displays the number of messages that are being downloaded.
All email messages from the Gmail account STUSERONE at gmail dot come are now downloaded into the Inbox.
Click on Inbox and select a message.
The message is displayed in the panel below.
Let’s double-click on the message.
It opens in a new tab.
Let’s close this tab, by clicking on the X icon, at the top right of the tab.
Let’s compose a message and send it to the account STUSERTWO at yahoo dot in
From the Mail toolbar, click Write.
The Write dialog box appears.
The From field, displays your name and the Gmail ID.
In the To field, let’s enter STUSERTWO at yahoo dot in
Let’s type the text Hi, I now have an email account in Thunderbird! in the body of the mail.
Now, let’s select the text and increase the font size.
Now, click the Larger font size Icon.This increases the Font size.
To change the colour of the text, first select it and click the Choose colour for text icon.
The Text Color dialog box appears. Let’s click Red and click OK.
The color of the text has changed.
Let’s insert a smiley now!Click on the Insert a Smiley face icon.
From the Smiley list, click Smile. A Smiley is inserted.
You can also do a spell check on your mail.
Let’s change the spelling of have to heve.
Click Spelling and select English US.
The Check Spelling dialog box appears, highlighting the misspelled word.
It also displays the correct spelling. Click Replace.Click Close to exit.
To set spelling preferences, from the Main menu, click Edit and Preferences.
From the Preferences.dialog box, click Composition.
You can then, check the options you require.Click Close.
Now, to send the mail, simply click on the Send button.
A Subject Reminder dialog box appears.
This is because we did not enter a Subject for this mail.
To send the mail without a Subject Line, you can click on Send Without Subject.
Click Cancel Sending.
Now, in the Subject field, type My First Email From Thunderbird.
Click Send.Your email has been sent. Let’s check it.
We have to open the STUSERTWO@yahoo.in account and check the Inbox.
So, let’s login to Yahoo
In the Yahoo login page, type the Yahoo ID STUSERTWO.Enter your password.
Click Inbox. The Inbox shows mail received from the Gmail account!
Click on the mail to open it.
You can use the Reply button and reply to the mail, but here let’s compose a new mail.
Let’s click on Compose.
In the To field, enter the address STUSERONE at gmail dot com
In the Subject field, enter Congrats!
Type, Glad you got a new account, in the mail
Click the Send button and log out of Yahoo.
Let’s close this browser.
Let’s check Thunderbird now.
Click Get Mail and click on Get All New Messages.
From the left panel, under your Gmail account ID, click Inbox.
The new message sent from the yahoo account is displayed in the Inbox.
The contents of the mail are displayed in the panel below.
You can reply to this mail, using Reply button.
We have successfully sent, received and viewed email messages using Thunderbird.
To log out of Thunderbird, from the Main menu, click File and Quit.
You will exit Mozilla Thunderbird.
This brings us to the end of this tutorial on Thunderbird.
In this tutorial we learnt about Mozilla Thunderbird and how to download, install and launch Thunderbird.
We also learnt how to:
Configure a new email account, Compose and send mail messages, Receive and read messages, Log out of Thunderbird.
Here is an assignment for you.
Download Mozilla Thunderbird application
Install and launch it.
Configure an email account in 'Thunderbird.'
Send and receive mails using this account. Observe what happens
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