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Setting up Mozilla Thunderbird 3

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If you are upgrading to Thunderbird 3 after having used Thunderbird 2, you will probably find that your settings are transferred automatically. You can check that they are correct by comparing your settings to the Account Settings given here (use the [Tools] menu, select [Accounts settings]).

If you have not used Thunderbird before, you need to add some of the settings yourself.

Thunderbird 3 is different from many other email clients in that it already has setup and configuration details for some large ISP or webmail providers. If you want to use Thunderbird 3 with, for example, a Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo account, you can use the Automatic Account Configuration (see Mozilla's list of ISPs that are included).

It is possible to use the auto-configuration dialogue to setup Thunderbird 3 for Nexus email too and this is described in the first section. If you have problems using auto-configuration you can use the manual configuration instructions instead.



1. Auto-configuration of Thunderbird 3

The following instructions guide you through the automatic account creation process of Thunderbird 3.

  1. Install and start the program (for details, see the Mozilla Thunderbird website)
  2. Click on the Create a new account option on the start screen

    Figure create-account.png [Opening screen showing the create account option]

  3. The Mail Account Setup opens

    Figure mailaccountsetup.png [Mail Account Setup screen]

  4. In the Mail Account Setup box, enter:
    • Your name: Your name as you wish it to appear on your messages
    • Email address: Your Nexus email address, for example jo.bloggs@unit.ox.ac.uk
    • Password: Your Oxford Single Sign-On password
    • Remember password Leaving this un-ticked means you have to enter your password when you open the email program (safer option).
    Click on Continue

    Figure accountSm.png []

  5. The program will now try to configure itself

    Figure searchingSm.png [Thunderbird is searching for Nexus settings]

  6. Click on the Stop button to stop the process (or leave it to fail - the end result is the same). Once the automatic configuration has been stopped or failed, you can edit the settings of the account
  7. Check that the settings in the top part of the Mail Account Setup window are correct. If not, click on Start over and enter the correct details:
    • Your name: Your name as you wish it to appear on your messages
    • Email address: Your Nexus email address, for example jo.bloggs@unit.ox.ac.uk
  8. Now enter the following settings manually in the lower part of the Mail Account Setup window:

    User name: Your Oxford Single Sign-On username, for example unit1234

    Incoming: imap.nexus.ox.ac.uk ; IMAP ; 993 ; SSL/TLS

    Outgoing: smtp.ox.ac.uk ; 587 ; STARTTLS

    Figure editSm.png [Setting entered manually into the appropriate boxes]

    Press Re-test Configuration button to make Thunderbird repeat the automatic search.

  9. In some instances the automatic search still fails to find the correct settings. If this happens please follow the manual configuration instructions instead.
  10. When the program has found the settings, press Create Account button. Thunderbird will now create the new account and fetch your emails for you to read. N.B. using IMAP setting also leaves all your mail on the Nexus server.

    Figure foundSettingsSm.png [Setting have been found by Thunderbird]

Once you have completed account configuration, you may wish to tweak your settings to work with Nexus more efficiently.

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:

    Figure selectIMAP.png []

    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.

    Figure settings1Sm.png [Initial account settings screen]

  4. Select [Server Settings] from the left-hand menu and the server setting options appear:

    Figure imapSm.png [More 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.

    Figure smtpSettings.png [Outgoing server settings - SMTP]

  6. Back in the Account Settings window, click OK to finalise the settings.

3. Additional Tweaks

There are several additional tweaks that can be made to Thunderbird to enable more fluid interchange between Thunderbird and Nexus. These are described below:



3.1. Using the Nexus Sent Items folder

Default Thunderbird installations store sent messages in the Sent folder. It is better to change this to the Nexus default instead. To change the setting:

  1. Open the Account Settings window (In the top navigantion bar, select [Tools] -> [Account Settings]).
  2. From the left-hand menu, select [Copies and Folders].
  3. On the Copies and Folders screen, select the Other radio button and click in the field next to it and select the name of your Nexus account
  4. A list of all your folders appears, choose the Sent Items folder and click OK to save your change.

3.2. Change the Junk mail folder

Default Thunderbird installations place junk mail into the Junk folder. It is better to change this to the Nexus default Junk E-Mail instead. To change the setting:

  1. Open the Account Settings window (In the top navigantion bar, select [Tools] -> [Account Settings]).
  2. Select [Junk Settings] from the left-hand menu bar
  3. On the Junk Settings screen, select the move new junk messages to: checkbox
  4. Click on the Other radio button and then click in the adjacent field. A list of accounts is now shown
  5. Select your Nexus account
  6. A list of all your folders appears, choose the Junk E-mail folder and click OK to save your change.

3.3. Configuring Thunderbird to use the Deleted Items folder

By default Thunderbird uses the Trash folder to store deleted items. For Nexus the expected name for this folder is Deleted Items. To change Thunderbird so that it uses this folder do the following:

  1. From the top menu in Thunderbird choose [Tools] > [Account Settings]
  2. The Account Settings screen opens
  3. Select [Server Settings] for your Nexus account from the menu
  4. On this new screen you will see that there is a list of options for what you can do with a deleted message. Select the radio button next to Move it to this folder
  5. Next click on the down arrow of the section box to reveal all of your Nexus folders. From this list choose Deleted Items
  6. Finally click the OK button to complete the process.

4. Adding calendaring functionality

Thunderbird has a calendaring plugin called Lightning that is free to download and use. However you will also need to download a second program, Davmail, which needs to be used inconjunction with Thunderbird/Lightning for Exchange calendaring to work.

Davmail is available for Windows, Mac and Linux and there are setup instructions for Linux and links to external setup information for the other two operating systems on the Davmail page.

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