Using ‘Thunderbird’ to Manage e-mail

Accounts

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Introduction to ThunderbirdThunderbird is a program designed to enable you to manage one or more e-mail accounts from a single platform. It represents an alternative to the Windows Live Mail option which has been used by many of our members for the past few years and which is NOT supported by Windows-10. Thunderbird was written by the Mozilla organization and works very well in a Windows-10 operating environment.

Why choose Thunderbird?Thunderbird is a client-based program which means that the actual program is running on your machine and not a “server’ at a remote location. The same goes for the messages you create and receive, plus all the folders you choose to create to contain those messages you wish to keep. In addition, Thunderbird was written by Mozilla – the well-known and favoured supplier of the Mozilla Firefox browser used by many of us and recommended by our Club.

We are also recommending Thunderbird because it meets the stated needs of our members, namely:

its ease of operation (although there is, of course, a learning-curve); it can handle multiple e-mail accounts on the same page for those of

us who want more than one; it supports personalized folders for message-storage; it has an easy-to-use calendar function; it has been around for several years and is well-established; and its price. (It’s free!)

Setting-up your edition of Thunderbird Copy the Thunderbird setup program into your ‘Downloads’ library. It

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Double-click on the Thunderbird entry in your Downloads library to start the setup procedure. The following sub-menus will then appear:

Thunderbird will now be installed on your computer. The next step is to establish your existing e-mail system on the Thunderbird platform. The following series of illustrations shows the steps involved in making a copy of a ‘gmail’ account available via Thunderbird.

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Click on ‘Next’

Click on ‘Finish’

Click on ‘Install’

Click on ‘Next’

Choose ‘Set as default’ Click on this

button

The newly-created Thunderbird version of your existing e-mail account will now be displayed, as shown on the following page . . .

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Enter information relating to your existing account. Click

Click on ‘Done’.

Enter your e-mail account name and Password. Click on ‘ALLOW’.

Note your e-mail account name near the top of the left panel. Note also the calendar feature in the right panel. (More about this later.)

By clicking on the ‘Inbox’ heading in the left panel you will see all your Inbox messages listed, together with a ‘Welcome’ message from Thunderbird.

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Transferring Contacts details to ThunderbirdIn this documentation we are assuming that you will be transferring your contacts from Windows Live Mail to the Thunderbird alternative. This assumption forms the basis for associated illustrations.

In your Windows Live Mail system, click on the Contacts icon which looks like an open book and is usually located near the bottom, left of your screen:

This will open the screen showing all your contacts and will look something like this . . .

First, highlight ‘All Contacts’ in the left-hand column. Then click on ‘Export’ in the menu bar. On the drop-down menu, click on the ‘Comma separated values (.CSV)’ option and enter the name of the file you want to save with your Contacts details in the ‘Save exported file as:’ box. (I called mine, ‘Addresses’.) Now hit the ‘Browse’ button to identify where you want to

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Contacts icon

save this file. (We recommend that you choose your ‘Downloads’ folder in which to store the file, simply because this makes it easier to find.)

This procedure should result in the display of screens similar to those shown as follows . . .

Screen displayed after hitting ‘Export’ Screen displayed after hitting ‘Browse’

Note that in the ‘Browse’ screen the ‘Downloads’ folder has been highlighted. Note also that the ‘Save as type:’ box is showing ‘Comma Separated Values (*.CSV). If it is not, hit the ‘down’ arrow at the right end of this box and select the CSV option. When you hit ‘Save’, the full address of your new file will be displayed in the ‘Save exported file as:’ box. Hit ‘Next’.

The next step is to identify the fields in your Contacts file that you will want to transfer to the Thunderbird e-mail account. We recommend that you should tick every box in this context – that way you will have the opportunity to transfer everything you have chosen to record in your Windows Live Mail file to your Thunderbird file. Hit the ‘Finish’ button to complete the procedure on the Windows Live Mail side of the transaction.

Open your Thunderbird program and click on the ‘Address Book’ tab near the top of the page.

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Click on ‘Tools’ and choose ‘Import’ from the drop-down menu. This will display the menu shown below . . .

Click on ‘Address Books’, then on ‘Next Click on ‘Text file (LDIF,tab,.csv, .txt)’, then on ‘Next’

Having clicked ‘Next’ on the first of the two menus above you will be shown the second one. At this point it is important that you click on the fourth of the options shown – i.e. ‘Text file (LDIF, .tab, .csv, .txt)’. Again, click on ‘Next’. You will now see the following . . .

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The first of the two columns shown in the box represents the various fields in the contacts file you have just stored in your ‘Downloads’ folder. The second column shows the fields in the corresponding Thunderbird file into which you will be transferring the information. You will note that the information in each of the fields in the two columns does not always coincide; for example, ‘First Name’ and ‘Last Name’ are OK, but then the ‘Display Name’ entry in the left-hand column is opposite the ‘Middle Name’ entry in the Thunderbird file. To correct the potential error, highlight the line containing the field into which you want the ‘Display Name’ to be transferred – in this particular case, the ‘Name’ field - and click on the ‘Move Up’ button to the right. The two figures at the top of the following page illustrate these actions . . .

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You will see in the second of the two illustrations above that ‘Display Name’ now coincides with ‘Name’. The same process must now be completed for all the fields you wish to take from your Windows Live Mail contacts file and transfer them to the corresponding Thunderbird file. When you have finished this (lengthy) process, press the ‘OK’ button at the bottom of the screen and your Thunderbird Contacts File will have been created under the name you chose to give it.

Creating a Message on ThunderbirdCreating a new message using Thunderbird is largely intuitive. Simply click on the ‘Write’ tab near the top of the page . . .

and you will be shown a blank message page as shown on the next page.

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With your cursor in the message space you can hit the ‘Format’ tab near the top of the page to change the font you want to use and its size. Note also the ‘Attach’ tab with its paper clip logo near the top-right of the screen. You can hit this tab if you wish to attach a picture or reference to a video clip, etc. to your message.

The Calendaring FunctionYou can choose to display your calendar down the right-hand side of your message screen so that you can see any imminent appointments / events about which you want to be reminded.

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By clicking on the down arrow you can change the

‘To’ to ‘Cc’ or ‘Bcc’

Enter name(s) of intended recipients

Enter your Subject

Write your message in this space . . .

. . . then hit the ‘Send’ tab

This is your calendar pane

Today’s date is displayed

You can see from the entries near the top of the calendar pane that you have the choice of displaying events for Today, Tomorrow or the Upcoming five days.

To create a new entry into your calendar, click on ‘New Event’ which you will find just below the displayed date.

This will result in the appearance of the following sub-menu . . .

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Enter the name of your event/appointment

If appropriate, enter a location

Enter the start and end times of the event

Enter the start and end times of the event

If applicable, enter details regarding a description of

the event, attachments and proposed attendees

The event you have planned will now appear in the Calendar pane at the right-hand side of your Thunderbird e-mail screen.

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When you have finished entering the details of your event,

click on ‘Save and Close’

Newly-entered event

There is an icon near the top of the screen which allows you to switch to a full-scale view of your calendar items. (See diagram below.) By clicking on the appropriate tab you can choose to display either a single day’s events, a week – which is shown in the example below – multiple weeks, or a month at a time.

All your planned events will be shown on these screens. In addition, you can always print-out the page if you wish to carry a copy with you.

So you can see that the calendar function of your Thunderbird system is intuitive and very flexible. It allows you to include as little or as much information relating to your planned events as you want. Note also that if you ticked the ‘Notify Attendees’ box when you entered details of the event, it facilitates automatic notification of the people you intend to invite.

To get back to your e-mail messages, either click on the ‘X’ on the highlighted calendar tab, or else click on the ‘Inbox’ tab to its left.

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SummaryOnce you have established Thunderbird as your default e-mail program and have been using it for a few days you will find that it is a dependable, user-friendly application with a lot of flexibility. You can maintain multiple e-mail accounts using the same program. You can create as many folders as you wish to contain copies of those messages you want to keep. Its calendar function is easy to use and is useful as a reminder for those of us who need the occasional nudge to bring our attention to the inevitable “to-do” list! Thunderbird has been around for several years and comes from a reliable supplier – i.e. the Mozilla organization. And last – but not least – it comes free of charge.

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