Lonnie from Cisco, TX writes:
I would like to know how to use Thunderbird to read my Gmail account. I use Thunderbird to read my local ISP e-mail and would like to do the same with my Gmail account.
Answer:
Thunderbird, the free e-mail client available from Mozilla by clicking here, supports receiving and sending mail from any POP3 or IMAP e-mail provider. Adding your Gmail account to Thunderbird is simple.
Start by going to the Tools Menu in upper right-hand corner and click the arrow next to Options then click Account Settings.
In Account Settings, click Account Actions and then click Add Mail Account.
In the Mail Account Setup screen, type in your name as you would like others to see it, your full Gmail e-mail address and the Gmail account password. Click Continue. An option should come up to select either IMAP (remove folders) or POP3 (keep mail on your computer). The IMAP option should automatically be selected, if not, select IMAP and click Done.
Thunderbird should now be set up to send and receive your Gmail e-mail account.
-Tim
I have always been nervous at using Thunderbird as I don’t know if you can revert back if you don’t like it. I have a gmail account, a business account off my website accessed by Microsoft Outlook and a GMX account which I have to sign into each time on their website. Can all these be aggregated onto Thunderbird?
Rod, I don’t know what a “GMX” account is, however, a couple of years ago, I switched from Outlook to Thunderbird (as a result of some problems I was having with Outlook) – and the transition was very easy – all my e-mails from my Outlook imported easily into Thunderbird and I was able to easily set up my 3 e-mail accounts to be accessed via Thunderbird. Recently, I had some problems with Thunderbird and decided to switch back to Outlook. I found that was not to be – I could not find a way to import the e-mails I had stored in Thunderbird back into Outlook. I left Thunderbird installed, though, so I could still access the ones from that period via Thunderbird if I am looking for one from that particular period but I am again using Outlook as my e-mail client. But that would not be very practical if I had to do that for business e-mails – I actually seldom have to do that for my fully personal e-mails.
If you research on the web, you will find many who much prefer Thunderbird over Outlook; my own experience is that it was a bit limited in just a few areas (including their calendar) and I prefer Outlook. My switching back and forth was partly my own desire to try different things and it was so easy to switch to Thunderbird, I had assumed it would be just as easy to switch back if I wanted and now I know it is not.