2. Manual Configuration of Thunderbird 3

If you have experienced difficulties using the autoconfiguration facility in Thunderbird 3 you can manually setup your email account using the following instructions:

  1. Follow the setup instructions for the auto-configuration method to step 7
  2. Once the automatic configuration has been stopped or has failed, you need to specify that you want an IMAP connection rather than a POP connection so select [IMAP] from the drop down list:
    Selecting an IMAP connection
    Figure 7. Selecting an IMAP connection

    Now press Manual Setup... to go to the Account Settings page.

    Note: if you really do want to use a POP connection you will need to use the setting on the Accessing Nexus using POP page. You may also want to take a look at the entry about IMAP and POP in the Email FAQ.

  3. Select your account from the list in the left-hand part of the window. You can change the settings in the right-hand window - for example you can re-name the account to e.g. 'My Nexus Account' as well as editing how your name appears to others.
    Initial account settings screen
    Figure 8. Account settings
  4. Select [Server Settings] from the left-hand menu and the server setting options appear:
    More server settings
    Figure 9. Server settings
    Enter the following details:
    • Server Name: imap.nexus.ox.ac.uk
    • Port: 993
    • User Name: Your Oxford Single Sign-On username, usually something relating to your college or department, like unit1234
    • Connection Security: SSL/TLS
    • 1,2 Authentication Method: Normal password

    Note 1: Some early versions of Thunderbird 3 only show a tickbox for authentication. This should be left unticked in such cases.

    Note 2: You may see 5 choices for Authentication Method; the fifth, Any secure method (deprecated), is only available if you have an exisiting Thunderbird profile created in an old version. If you do a fresh install of Thunderbird 3, with no existing profile in place, only the first 4 options are shown.

    The other options can be set if you want to define, for example, how often the program should check for new messages automatically.

  5. Select Outgoing Server (SMTP) from the left-hand list. In the right-hand part of the window, select Add and enter the following details in the SMTP Server window:
    • Description: anything, for example Oxford smtp
    • Server name: smtp.ox.ac.uk
    • Port: 587
    • User name: Your Oxford Single Sign-On username for example unit1234
    • Connection security: STARTTLS
    • Authentication method: Normal Password

    Once the above details have been added click OK to save your SMTP settings.

    Outgoing server settings - SMTP
    Figure 10. Outgoing Server (SMTP) settings
  6. Back in the Account Settings window, click OK to finalise the settings.

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