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, Email Address and Password. 
  4. Click Continue
  5. Under Available Configurations, select the IMAP option and click the Done button.
    1. Note, you can select POP3, but this will not keep your emails in sync across multiple devices and is not recommended.
  6. Click Finish and Thunderbird will automatically setup the majority of your email settings. 
While Thunderbird handles most of the settings, you will need to make a couple of manual changes before you can start sending new email.

Update your Password Settings
  1. Click on Tools.
  2. Click on Account Settings
  3. Click on the "Server Settings" option on the left under your email address
  4. Look for Security Settings and change Authentication Method to "Normal Password" in the dropdown menu.
  5. Click on the Inbox icon on the to left of Thunderbird to return to your inbox and save the change you just made 
Enter your Email Password the first time you send an email
Thunderbird may ask you to enter your email password the first time you create a new email.  
  1. Click the New Message button to create a new email. 
  2. Enter the address, subject and whatever content you want in the body of the message and click Send.
  3. 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.









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