Thunderbird is an Open-Source email client brought to you by the Mozilla Organization. It has an integrated calendar, works well with Firefox and can be synched amongst all your computers whether MAC or PC. Here is a short overview of how to install Thunderbird on your computer.

1. Setting up an email in Thunderbird
While much of the world is transfixed by the Cloud, life as a desktop based email is still hugely
popular with much of the community (myself included). There’s something reassuring about having
access to all your emails on your personal computers even without an internet connection.
Thunderbird is an Open-Source email client brought to you by th Mozilla Organization. It has an
integrated calendar, works well with Firefox and can be synched amongst all your computers
whether MAC or PC.
Here is a short overview of how to install Thunderbird on your computer.
Click here
And it downloads the
setup program
Then click on the download box when it’s complete

2. You get this window.
Click Run
You get this
Then this
Click Next

3. Then click Install
And you get this

4. then this
Click Finish
The setup programme will now run
Thunderbird on your computer for the first
time, and will offer a few options to begin
with:
This window lets you import your contact lists
from Outlook. If you want to transfer this into
Thunderbird then just click Next,
or click on the ‘don’t import anything’ if you
don’t want this.
I’ve been using Outlook so I’ll import the
information (ie just click Next).

5. Then Thunderbird opens:
To access your mail just click Get Mail. If you have a password-protected email then it might ask
you for this at this point, or simply download your mail into the Inbox.

6. If you haven’t imported addresses from Outlook, then you’ll need to set up your emails to download
from the server. To do this, select Account settings from the Tools menu:
Then select Account Actions -> Add Mail Account

7. Fill in the relevant details that you will have from your
Email host (usually your web host). If you’re unsure,
call your host for the correct details.
It will automatically try and find your email
settings, which is pretty cool. If it can’t find yours
then click Manual Config and have your web host
information ready (or call them).
I
like to have the added security of entering my
password whenever I check the mail. If you don’t
care, leave the Remember password box ticked.
If all seems right, then click Create Account.
And (all going well) you can then click Get Mail to download all your emails from the server.
And that’s it. You can set up email folders to file your mail in the same way as you would any folder
system (ie right-click -> new folder) and you can even set mail to automatically file itself depending
on what it contains... But that’s a story for another article...
This tutorial was brought to you by the team at Explainafide, a creative web design
agency based in Australia. Keep your eyes open for more tuts over the coming weeks.