DRAFT

Adding an account to Thunderbird is normally a straightforward action. Click the hamburger icon menu and choose + New and Existing Mail Account

When you create a new Google account, users have two weeks to enable 2SV. Make sure 2SV is enabled before adding the account to Thunderbird.

You do not need to enter the password here; the OAuth authentication will ask you for the password later. You can try to avoid the “Configure manually” option and click continue.

It should find the settings automatically and suggest IMAP by default. You can click Done.

It should then ask you to log in to your account as shown below. Enter your credentials and your 2SV code.

Allow Thunderbird to access your account

Thunderbird should confirm that your account was added successfully

 

Click on Account settings to check that the correct settings are being used.

 

Click on Edit SMTP server

 

Port 465 (SMTPS) must be specified as well as SSL/TLS - OAuth2

 

Go back to the Account settings, and click Server Settings

 

Port 993 (IMAPS) must be specified as well as SSL/TLS - OAuth2

If the right settings are not set, you can change them from there.

Notice that if you have many accounts, the SMTP servers of all the identities are listed at the bottom in Account Settings. If you mistakenly choose to use the default server, it could be that your emails will be sent using the sender address of another account. Make sure to pick up the right identity.

 

 

As for Outlook. You can try to add your Google account (good luck).

Enter your credentials including 2SV code

 

In my test, the Allow box was grayed out… It seems it has something to do with the default browser being used to display the login screen. And guess what? This is Internet Explorer (even if IE is uninstalled from the computer). It seems quite clear that Google and Microsoft products are competing products, and that each of them will do their best to encourage you to switch to their system. So avoiding Outlook is a good practice for Google accounts.

 

This said, Google provides GSSMO "Google Workspace Sync for Microsoft Outlook." It is a software tool that can help you to synchronize your Google Workspace accounts with Microsoft Outlook. It helps with email synchronization, calendar Integration and provides offline access.

The good thing with Thunderbird is that if you change the user's computer, you can copy the Thunderbird profile to the new machine, and this will keep all the accounts, and settings. 

To see the location of the profile click the menu and choose Help and then More troubleshooting information.

 

Scroll down to Profile Folder and click Open Folder. 

 

This will open the Explorer to the right location.

 

Close Thunderbird and copy the current profile’s folder to the new computer

 

In case you only want to copy the address book, copy these files

 

 

If you need to enter advanced debug commands, Thunderbird has a config editor.

You can find it if you click the Menu and then Settings. Scroll down to the bottom of the page.

 

One example is the command mailnews.tcptimeout which allows you to extend the delay before Thunderbirds consider the tcp connexion has timed out

 

Another useful feature is the option to start Thunderbird in safe mode. Simply hold Shift when you launch TB. You can then check 'Reset toolbars and controls' and click 'Make changes and restart'. In my experience, this solved for example a problem where Thunderbird would no longer open docx files. I then went to Menu\Settings\General\Files & Attachments I set again “Use Word” for Microsoft Word Document 

 

Note that Thunderbird offers a lot of features that your users might find useful. For example, you can manage identities in your accounts settings.

 

This allows you, for example, to add other signatures, like one per language, depending on the language you want to write your email in. 

 

Then when you write an email, you can click your From email address field and you will be able to choose the identity you want

 

You may want to add your Google calendars to Thunderbird to receive notifications for upcoming meetings directly in the app. Go to Menu\ Add-ons and Themes  

 

Search for the “Provider for Google Calendar” add-on and enable it

Then Go to Calendar and add your calendar accounts

Note that I had a bad experience with Thunderbird deleting calendar events when I discarded the event reminders. To avoid this, right-click the calendar and set the calendar as read-only

 

Thunderbird allows you to archive your messages. This process moves the emails older than a threshold date to local folders in your Thunderbird profile. This helps you stay within the 15Gb limit of your Google Account. This is how it works.

 

Go to Account Settings and select Copies & Folders

Select the location for your archived emails. Click on Archives options.

 

You then select how you want to archive them and whether you want to keep the existing folder structure.

When you are done with the settings, you must start the archiving process manually. In the example above I selected a yearly archiving, so once a year I start the process manually.

Go to each folder items (Inbox, Sent items, …) and select Message\Archive

Tags is another useful feature. You can create Tags to categorize your emails using colors or give them different priorities. In the example below I create the “Checked” Tags, to quickly spot the emails I already processed.

 

Once you have tags, you can right click any email and select Tag and choose your Tag.

 

You can also create a new subfolder where you want to move all emails you already processed.

 

Thunderbird allows you to automate actions. Click Tools and Message Filters

 

Then click New

You can now create a rule to check every 10 minutes and move all emails Tagged as Processed to the folder you have created

 

 

Then, if you previously tagged emails as Checked you might want to click Run Now to check your rule works fine.