Setup Thunderbird with IMAP

# Posted Dec 23, 3:18pm

The following screenshots were taken with Thunderbird running on Mac OS X, but the interface is consistent enough between operating systems that you shouldn’t have a problem following along if you use Windows or Linux.

1. When you fire up Thunderbird for the first time, you’ll get a dialog that asks you to import settings from another mail program. Go ahead and select the program if you’re going to be using Thunderbird from now on. These installation instructions presume that you’re starting from scratch:

2. Alternatively, if you’ve been using Thunderbird and are just adding your Ideanode, account, to to Tools -> Account Settings:

3. We’re creating a new Email Account, so that’s what we select, and click Next>:

4. Enter in your name as you’d like it to appear on your outgoing messages, as well as your email address:

5. We’re going to retrieve our mail using IMAP, which means that the mail is stored on the server. The incoming server name is “imap.example.com” (replace example.com with your domain name, like “seanporter.com”). The outgoing mail server is “smtp.example.com” (again, replacing example.com with your domain name).

6. Incoming username and outgoing username are just the email address of the account you’re setting up. Simple!

7. You can use whatever you’d like for the account name, we like to just type in the email address again:

8. Now, confirm your acount settings and click “Finish”:

9. Now, we need make some changes to your outgoing mail account. Go to Tools -> Account Settings:

10. And then click on “Outgoing Server (SMTP). Change the “Port:” to 587, and check the box that says “Use name and password” entering in your email address for “User Name:”:

11. Click on “OK” and you’re done.