Aeonscope | Thunderbird

Thunderbird

Introduction

Thunderbird is developed by the Mozilla Corporation and one of the best freeware e-mail programs out there. It is also shares the same level of customization as Firefox. In fact, some extensions and themes that work with Firefox also work with Thunderbird.

Getting Started

Start by downloading and installing Thunderbird.

Settings

The following screenshots walk through my Gmail account settings as found via main menu and selecting Tools->Options:

(Gmail Account Settings)

(Gmail Server Settings)

(Gmail Copies and Folders)

(Gmail Composition and Addressing)

(Gmail Disk Space)

(Gmail Return Receipts)

(Local Account Settings)

(Outgoing Server)

The thing to keep in mind when setting up accounts in Thunderbird is that you should specify your full e-mail address when asked for your login name instead of just your login name. By default, do not set any security settings when setting up your account for the first time. Check that you can send and receive e-mail first and then apply security settings. Some accounts like Gmail allow secure protocol but others, like FuseMail, do not. Your mileage may vary.

Themes

Noia - My favorite theme.

Extensions

Lightning - An colorful calendar, task, and scheduling tool. Part of the Mozilla Sunbird project. Still in development but showing potential…
Duplicate Contact Manager - Keeps your address book(s) organized by helping you detect and remove duplicate entries (if any).
Update Notifier - Provides automatic notification when new themes and/or extensions are available.
Quote Collapse - Collapses the body of an e-mail message allowing you to easily toggle the the text from being displayed to being hidden. Great for parsing messages quickly.
Skype - Associates contacts in your address book(s) with your Skype contacts and allows you to chat, send files, call , etc. to those Skype-enabled contacts from within Thunderbird.
Stylish - Makes use of the new Thunderbird 2.0 tagging feature by allowing you to stylize your messages more than the default. Take a look here for further instructions and examples.