Email Configuration in Thunderbird: Automatic and Manual Methods

Using an email client like this is an excellent solution to easily manage multiple email accounts.

Thunderbird is an open source email application developed by the Mozilla Foundation in 2004. It is also one of the most popular email management platforms along with .

With Thunderbird, users can access all of their incoming email in a single folder instead of going to each email account’s inbox. Also, there are many add-on services available for Thunderbird to extend its functionality.

In this guide, we will guide you step by step to set up an email account in Thunderbird.

Collecting email settings

Before proceeding to set up Thunderbird, you’ll need to gather some email configuration details.

To add a Gmail account or something similar to Thunderbird, you will only need the full email address and passwordas the platform can automatically determine your mail server configuration settings.

These details will be required if you want to add a custom email address to Thunderbird.

If you use a email, you can locate the email information by logging into your hosting account and going to Emails -> Email accounts.

There, select your domain name and go to Configuration settings -> Manual configuration to see the server names and ports.

Be sure to write down your outgoing server and incoming server details: you’ll need them to manually set up your custom email account.

How to configure Mozilla Thunderbird email?

Once you’ve gathered the necessary information, it’s time to set up your email account in Thunderbird. The following tutorial will show you how to do it both automatically and manually.

Let’s start with automatic account setup.

Set up email in Mozilla Thunderbird automatically

This method is best for setting up an account for Gmail or other popular email providers.

Start by opening Mozilla Thunderbird. If this is the first time you open it after installation, the page will appear Set up your existing email address.

In it, enter your full name, full email address, and password. Then press Continue.

Thunderbird will automatically search for and fill in your mail provider’s incoming and outgoing mail server details. It will also give you the option to choose IMAP or POP as your incoming mail protocol. After making your choice, press the button Done.

The following page will appear once you have successfully set up an email account in Thunderbird.

On the same page, click To finalize to see your mailbox. Now, you can start using Thunderbird to manage emails. The interface looks like this:

To add a new account, click your email address in the left panel of the page and click Email in the section Set up another account. Then follow the same steps as before.

Manually configure email in Mozilla Thunderbird

Manual configuration is recommended for users who want to set up a custom email or whose email provider does not appear in the Thunderbird auto-configuration database.

Manually adjusting email server settings is also better for the security of your mail exchange

To manually set up an email account in Thunderbird, open the application and click the hamburger menu button at the top right of the window to access this email client setup page. then click New -> Existing email account.

Once the Mozilla Thunderbird setup page appears, fill in your name, full email address, and mailbox password (we’ll use an email from in this example). Then click on Manually configure.

Manual configuration options will appear on the same page. Here, edit the server names, ports, and security settings based on the configuration details you’ve collected. Configure additional account settings as needed.

Start by setting up your incoming mail server. In this example, we will choose IMAP in the incoming protocol dropdown menu and type imap..com as the hostname of the incoming server. We will also change the input port to 993.

Now click on the drop down menu connection security and select . For the incoming server authentication method, we recommend choosing regular password.

fill in the field Username with your email username without the domain extension. For example, if your email address is admin@yourdomain.comthe username will be admin.

After configuring the incoming port, hostname, username, and other details of the incoming server, continue to configure the outgoing mail server.

Start by filling in the fields server name Y Port from your outgoing server – we will use smtp..com as outgoing server name and 465 as outgoing port.

Choose SSL/TLS as a method of connection security. Then click on the drop down menu Authentication method and choose the outgoing authentication routine you prefer; We recommend that you also use the regular password for this configuration. You do not need to fill in the outgoing username, as the platform will use the username you entered for incoming mail.

Once you’re done, click the button check again to check your manual settings. If the settings are valid, Thunderbird will display a quick response like this:

Press Done to finish and wait for Thunderbird to verify your email settings. A new page will appear showing that your account is now connected to Thunderbird. Press To finalize to see the mailbox.

The newly added email account will appear in the left pane of the application window.

To learn more about additional settings to customize this email client, visit .

conclusion

Thunderbird helps you keep your inboxes clean and organized. In addition, it is possible to customize this platform to suit your needs.

By default, Thunderbird takes care of most of the mail setup automatically: users just need to provide their name, email address, and password.

If you’re using a custom email address or your email provider doesn’t appear in the Thunderbird database, you’ll need to manually set up your email account.

Let’s recap the two ways to set up an account in Thunderbird:

• Automatic configuration: Open the Thunderbird app and enter your full name, email address, and password. Wait for the platform to configure the email provider’s incoming and outgoing servers. You can then continue configuring additional account settings.
• Manual configuration: Sign in to Thunderbird, enter your email access data and choose to configure the email account manually. Next, enter the settings for the incoming and outgoing servers.

We hope this article has been useful to you. If you have any questions, leave them in the comments section below.

Gustavo is passionate about creating websites. He focuses on the application of SEO strategies at for Spain and Latin America, as well as the creation of high-level content. When he is not applying new WordPress tricks you can find him playing the guitar, traveling or taking an online course.