Tag Archives: thunderbird

Synchronise thunderbird address book with Google contacts

Computer Aid Posted on by

Ever since I started using thunderbird (many years ago), its always bothered me that I would have separate contact lists in Google, Thunderbird, MYOB, and my customer mailing list (PHPList).

It was much worse, before I started using Google for contacts.

Back then, my phone would also have separate contacts that needed processing with each new phone! Now, with Android, I just use google!

I once looked at synchronising google contacts with thunderbird, but I didn’t get very far.

But recently, I found a thunderbird app called gContactSync.

I was a bit hesitant at first, and looked over the instructions very carefully, as this has the potential to backfire and wipe out all my google contacts.

So the first thing I did is use google contacts to export a backup of all my contact (more -> export)

Then I installed and configured gContactSync into thunderbird

Its always reassuring to know that gContactSync can be setup to sync my google contacts in a separate address book from the default (I named mine: Google Contacts).

After the initial sync (it took a few tries, and a few restarts of thunderbird to make it all happen), everything went very smoothly.

I’ve been using it now, for over 1 month, with 2 computers running thunderbird, with no problems.

Now: if only MYOB and PHPList would sync with google (i’m not holding my breath on that!), then I won’t have to triple-enter customer details!

transfer emails from thunderbird to outlook or between any email app

Computer Aid Posted on by

I setup a new computer for someone who had office 2003 (with outlook) on their old PC.

I also installed office home and student 2010, as it was the most cost-effective, but it didn’t have outlook.

So I decided to setup the thunderbird email client, as its not a huge change for most people.

In this case, the new owner just couldn’t cope with thunderbird, so I thought: easy! just buy the standalone outlook 2010, and export the thunderbird emails, then import them into outlook.

WRONG!

Not only was I very disappointed that thunderbird had no decent export facility (and some ineffective third-party addons), I was also surprised that Microsoft Outlook had no way of importing Thunderbird emails.

After a lot of searching, I found most solutions involved either:

  • Commercial programs that would create Outlook pst files from thunderbird (but these programs are usually time-limited, or can only be used on 1 PC)… and I had 2 PCs to convert…
  • Free utilities to export each individual email, and then import each email individually into Outlook… Not good if you need to transfer hundreds of emails

But then, I found that the mozilla website itself mentioned (very briefly) the prospect of using IMAP to transfer between email clients.

I didn’t like the idea of transferring a huge amount of data across the internet (to and from an IMAP server), but I also noticed a mention of a local IMAP email server called hMailServer

hMailServer its easy to install and configure even though setting up a server is quite daunting.

But since I’m likely to do this sort of thing quite a lot, I decided to spend the time learning how to do it (and share it with you).

The biggest problem with this is that you must be sure that both email clients are IMAP capable (some are not), and that both email clients are on the PC at the same time.

Normally, I will disable the POP3 (or IMAP) settings on the “old” email client by just changing the POP3 and SMTP server names from something like mail.isp.com to: mail.isp.comm

This means only 1 email client is actually receiving live mail.

After that, its a case of setting up the local IMAP server (hMailServer), then adding a new “local” IMAP account to both email clients, then transferring the emails/folders, and then remove the temporary IMAP accounts, and uninstall hMailServer.

I found that its actually easier than spending hours scouring the net, looking for the “right” tool to transfer between 2 different email programs.

So: download hMailServer, install it on the PC where you will be transferring emails (use the default settings), then:

When asked for a server password, just enter something simple (I use: 12345)

Clipboard01

 

At the end of the installation, run the administrator tool to setup the server settings:

Clipboard02

 

Hit the connect button to connect to “localhost”:

Clipboard03

 

From the “welcome” section, click “Add domain”:

Clipboard04

 

Enter any domain name (it doesn’t matter, so I pick: local.com), then I click Save:

Clipboard05

 

Then go down to domains -> local.com -> Accounts, and click Add:

Clipboard06

 

Create a user, give it a password, and click save (I called it “user”):

Clipboard07

 

Initially, I had some problems connecting until I realised I made a few mistakes typing the password, and the server locked the account. So it doesn’t happen again, I disabled the “auto-ban” feature & click save:

Clipboard08

 

Now leave the hMailServer admin panel (leave it running in the background if you like, or close it… it won’t matter).

Now we can setup the email client to connect to the new server. In this case I’m using thunderbird, but its a similar process with other email clients. Tools -> Account settings -> account actions -> add mail account:

Clipboard09

 

Enter the details for the server (remember, the password is the one you created for the user account, NOT the one for the server admin)

Clipboard10

 

Thunderbird then goes and tries to find this fake server, so I quickly have to hit the manual config button to stop the auto-config:

Clipboard11

 

Now I can enter the correct details for the server. Notice the server hostname is 127.0.0.1 (ie it will only look at the local PC). Hit re-test, and it will find the correct settings for the local server:

Clipboard12

 

Now you can click the “Done” button:

Clipboard13

 

You might get a scary-looking warning. Don’t worry, unless you doing this at an internet cafe, or via some other public internet connection (eg McDonalds):

Clipboard14

 

Hey, look, thunderbird now has an extra “user@local.com” account. You can now copy all your folders and emails from your standard email account to the local.com account… and its a LOT faster than using an internet IMAP server.

Clipboard15

Once you finish copying the emails, setup a similar account on your new email client (eg Microsoft Outlook), and then copy the emails from the local.com account to the new (presumably empty) email account.

Once the copy is complete, you can remove the local.com accounts from both email clients… restart them and double-check that you actually did copy the old emails correctly.

You can then uninstall hMailServer… but to be safe, I’d wait a week or two.

Thunderbird master password reset

Computer Aid Posted on by

I recently had a customer call to ask if I could setup their email client.

I couldn’t see why they would need this, as they seemed competent enough.

Anyway, when I arrived, I was told that a well-meaning employee had tried to setup Mozilla Thunderbird, but did not get anywhere.

When I started Thunderbird, I was asked for a master password as soon as I tried to do something meaningful (eg complete setting up an email account, or changing the settings of an existing account).

It was annoying, as I could make all the changes I needed, but as soon as I tried to save the changes, I’d get the master password dialog box.

Since nobody knew the master password, I decided to find out how to reset the password.

I soon found the trick:

Start Thunderbird -> tools -> error console -> paste the expression openDialog("chrome://pippki/content/resetpassword.xul")-> evaluate button

Please note that there is a very real possibility that you will lose any other stored passwords… But this wasn’t an issue in this case, as it was a new account.

connection to SMTP server was lost in the middle of the transaction

Computer Aid Posted on by

This laptop seemed to have a problem sending emails via Mozilla Thunderbird.

Since the customer knew very little about computers, she had many “helping hands” try to fix her problem (and one who probably caused the problem in the first place!).

Anyway, its easy to assume that most settings are correct, since receiving emails works.

After some research, and checking the settings, I find that to access the hotmail account, I need to setup the outgoing server like so:

server: smtp.live.com

port: 587

SSL/TLS encryption

Authentication: normal password (ie don’t encrypt the password)

I try sending emails again, but I keep getting:

The connection to SMTP server smtp.live.com was lost in the middle of the transaction.

So, I’m starting to wonder whats wrong with Thunderbird, or whats wrong with live.com…

But I soon find that its actually a problem with Thunderbird remembering saved passwords.

Although I wasn’t told, it seems that the customer had changed her email password (or someone had changed it for her).

But thunderbird kept using the old password.

So how do you change thunderbirds saved passwords?

Simple, from the main thunderbird window:

tools -> options -> security -> passwords -> saved passwords -> show passwords -> yes -> highlight the smtp entry with the old password -> remove -> close and get out of the options screen -> restart thunderbird

Now, when you try to send an email, you will be prompted to enter the password… and you can once again tell thunderbird to remember it…

Setup Thunderbird email to use gmail imap

Computer Aid Posted on by

Having moved from the world of pop3 to imap (some of you will say: about time!), I’ve found that I tend to want to setup thunderbird (and gmail) in a way that suits the way I work.

This means setting up Thunderbird slightly differently from the way google recommends you do it.

The obvious first step is to install thunderbird and to make sure your gmail account is set to imap (settings -> pop/imap -> enable imap).

Follow googles configuration instructions for thunderbird imap (gmail thunderbird imap configuration). Its slightly outdated, but its good enough to get most parameters correct.. Just remember that where they say: “select server settings from the folder list below your new account” they ACTUALLY mean: right click on the new account name, select “properties”, then select  server settings. Also follow the recommended client settings.

At this point, I change a few settings.

  1. I create my own signature file (usually just a text file), and then I go tools -> account settings, tick “attach this signature”, and choose the signature file I just created.
  2. Account Settings -> Copies & folders: don’t tick “Other” for Drafts and templates
  3. Account Settings -> Composition & Addressing: Then, start my reply above the quote and place my signature below my reply (above the quote)
  4. Check your emails… making sure you can receive emails, then: Account Settings -> Offline & Disc Space: tick both “offline” options (and use select button to select all folders). This works to “backup” your emails, plus lets you read emails if you get disconnected from the internet.
  5. Account settings -> Junk Settings: I tick enable adaptive junk… but if you use this account on many PCs/iphones/etc, then enable this setting on only 1 PC (the most used one). Also: Move new junk to: [Gmail]->Spam
  6. Trash: Google strongly suggest you don’t do this (because if you have an email in a few folders, then deleting it from one folder will delete it from all folders… which is exactly what I want anyway): Tools -> options -> advanced -> general -> config editor -> in the filter box, type: mail.server.server, looks for the number after “server” which corresponds to the account you are setting up.. be careful here! (eg mail.server.server2) Right click on any name -> new -> string -> enter something like: “mail.server.server2.trash_folder_name” -> OK -> enter: [Gmail]/Trash -> OK (make sure the string you enter has the correct upper/lower cases!
  7. Now for the most annoying part of thunderbird: the columns on the main window. thunderbird-columnsClick on the small box in the top right hand corner of the window (the one with a tiny square and a tiny black triangle),  and tick: size, recipient. untick: starred, read.

Whats annoying about the columns in the main window? With gmail imap, the columns apply to all folders… so the sent mail folder will normally show the sender… which is useless! I need to see the recipient! So I need to show both sender and recipient columns… what a waste of space.

Setup thunderbird email to use gmail (incoming and outgoing)

Computer Aid Posted on by

As part of my process of moving from TheBat! to Thunderbird, I had some pop3 gmail accounts to setup in thunderbird.

thunderbirdAt first I just tried to copy the settings from TheBat!, but it didn’t seem to work.

After a look at googles configuration help, I see that Thunderbird needs to use SSL for incoming emails. That was quick to fix.

Next, I thought I’d setup gmail for outgoing emails as well.

So I followed googles instructions for this (the main point is to use the “TLS if available” setting). It sounds simple enough, but it didn’t work.

Thunderbirds account settings are arranged a bit different to most other email clients… particularly when it comes to configuring outgoing connections.

Yes, most people will use their ISPs SMTP settings for outgoing emails, but I figure if I can I’ll use googles outgoing  mail server if possible.

So, With Thunderbird, all outgoing SMTP connections are configured in one place (“outgoing server (SMTP)”).

Then, within each pop account settings, there is a section where you select the outgoing server from the list that you created previously… It feels backwards to me, but then not many people setup their email client with 6 different email accounts.

Anyway, after some quick experimenting, I find that I just need to make the outgoing gmail settings use SSL and port 465.

thunderbird: how to delete tags that you don’t need

Computer Aid Posted on by

I like using tags in Mozilla Thunderbird, but I found an odd problem.

I only need 2 tags… lets call them “me” and “wife”.

Since Thunderbird 2.x has a few built-in tags, I just added 2 extra tags via: right-click on a message, then select: tag -> new tag

But how do you remove existing tags like: “to do”, “important”, “work” ?

I was surprised to find very little info about it.

A google search either found people not being able to tag/untag messages, or people saying it can’t be done.

Yet I was sure I saw a way during my initial test of Thunderbird.

And then I found it:

tools -> options -> display -> tags -> select the tag you don’t want -> press delete button.

moving emails from the bat! to thunderbird

Computer Aid Posted on by

I’ve been wanting to try using IMAP for my emails, and I found out that my existing email client (the bat!) seemed to have poor support for IMAP.

So I decided to switch to a more mainstream email client. I decided on Mozilla Thunderbird.thunderbird2

My first hurdle was moving thousands of emails in about 200 folders, into thunderbird.

I found the only realistic way to do it was folder by folder.

In theBat!, I would select all the emails in a folder, then tools -> export -> unix mailbox

Then give the file a name… usually the same name as the folder you are exporting from, and save it to c:documents and settings{username}Application Datathunderbirdprofiles{long string of letters and numbers}MailLocal Folders

Repeat the process for all folders

Start Thunderbird, and all the exported folders will appear in Local Folders

Just drag and drop them to the correct place.

NOTE: I tried to make it easier by duplicating my TheBat! folder structure in thunderbirds “Local Folders”, only to find that Thunderbird will not show the contents of exported unix files unless they are directly in Local folders.

Hmmm, not a promising start.