How To Setup Thunderbird

How To Setup Thunderbird

This article will walk you through how to configure the Thunderbird email client to access your EarthLink email.  Thunderbird is a full featured email client that also includes locally stored calendar and tasks features.  Setup generally just required your email address and password, but there are a couple of manual setting changes you will need to make as well. 

Thunderbird can be downloaded from https://www.thunderbird.net/.

  1. Open Thunderbird
  2. If this is your first time opening Thunderbird, it may take you directly into an account setup wizard.  If it does not, click File, New, Email Account to start the email setup wizard. 
  3. Fill in your Full name and, Email Address
  4. Click Continue
  5. Under the Account Hub (Available Configurations on older versions of Thunderbird), make sure the IMAP option is selected and click the Continue button.
  6. Enter your email address password and click Continue
  7. Click Finish and Thunderbird will automatically setup the majority of your email settings.  
  8. You should now find yourself on the Account Settings screen.  On the left, in the navigation menu under your email address, click on Server Settings
  9. Locate the Security Settings section on the right and make sure Connection Security is set to SSL/TLS.
  10. Under the Security Settings section change Authentication method to Normal Password (it may be defaulted to Encrypted Password, but that will cause issues and needs to be changed.) (Note: If Authentication method was default set to Encrypted Password, you will still want to change it to Normal Password.  Your connection is already protected using the SSL/TLS option you selected for Connection Security.  Leaving the authentication method set to Encrypted password can cause intermittent problems when checking your email.  Make sure it is set to Normal Password.)
  11. Now click on the Email Inbox Icon on the top right of Thunderbird to go to your email Inbox (this also saves the settings changes you just made).
  12. The first time you send an email, you may be asked to enter your password one more time. If Thunderbird asks for your password, enter your password and click the "Use Password Manger to remember this password" if you do not want to have to enter it each time you send a new email. 
Thunderbird is now configured to check your EarthLink email. 

Reference Screenshots

The following screenshots are for reference if you want to visually confirm your email settings to known working settings for EarthLink email. 

Server Settings - Click Tools and then Account Settings, look for your email address on the left and click on Server Settings


Outgoing Server Settings - Click Tools and then Account Settings, look for your email address on the left and click on Outgoing Server (SMTP)
Select the EarthLink smtpauth.earthlink.net (Default) option from the list and click on Edit.









    • Related Articles

    • Outlook 365 Email Setup

      This article will walk you through setting up your EarthLink Email in Outlook 365. Open Outlook Click on File Click the Account Settings Button Click the first option that says Account Settings (again) in the drop down that opens Click the Email Tab ...

    • How To Setup Email On Android Phone or Tablet

      Android does not offer a generic email client and instead encourages you to use an Email client of your liking. If you are looking for an app for email you can use the My EarthLink app or add your EarthLink email to the Gmail app included on most ...

    • How to setup an iPad to check EarthLink Email

      Summary The following article will show you how to configure your iPad to check EarthLink E-mail. How to setup an iPad to check EarthLink Email 1 Click the Settings button. 2 Click the Other option 3 Enter in your Name, Email Address, Email Password ...

    • How To Forward an Email as an Attachment

      This article will show you how to forward an email as an attached file. This can be helpful when the recipient needs to have the original email fully intact. Simply clicking forward on an email only forwards the part of the email you can see. Header ...

    • Set up EarthLink Email on a New Mobile Device

      Most mobile devices have a built in email application that requires nothing more than entering your email address and password to complete setup. EarthLink also has a MyEarthLink mobile application for both iOS and Android that provides easy access ...