How to Set Up Email in Thunderbird | Web Design in Horsham | Affordable Web design in Horsham

Before you start

To add your business email to Thunderbird, you will need a few details from your email provider. In most cases, business email should be set up using IMAP. This keeps your emails synced across Thunderbird, your phone and webmail.

Thunderbird is often good at detecting email settings automatically, but business email accounts sometimes need the incoming and outgoing server details entered manually.

Email settings you will need

Use the settings supplied by your email provider. The example below shows a typical business email setup using secure IMAP and SMTP.

Email address	yourname@example.co.uk
Username	Your full email address
Password	The mailbox password supplied to you
Incoming server	imap.example.co.uk
Incoming type	IMAP
Incoming port	993
Outgoing server	smtp.example.co.uk
Outgoing port	465
SSL	On for both incoming and outgoing mail
Authentication	Password authentication required for both incoming and outgoing mail

Important: in Thunderbird, your username is normally your full email address. If sending does not work, check that the outgoing SMTP server is using the correct username, password and authentication settings.

Step-by-step: set up email in Thunderbird

Follow these steps to add your business email account to Thunderbird.

Open Thunderbird Open Thunderbird on your computer. If this is the first account being added, Thunderbird may open the account setup screen automatically.

Start adding an account If the setup screen does not open automatically, go to Account Settings and choose Add Mail Account.

Enter your name and email address Enter your name, your full business email address and the mailbox password supplied by your email provider.

Continue the setup Thunderbird may try to find your settings automatically. If it finds the correct settings, check them carefully before continuing.

Choose IMAP Select IMAP as the incoming account type. IMAP is normally best for business email because it keeps your mailbox synced across devices.

Enter the incoming mail settings Add your incoming IMAP server, port 993, SSL/TLS encryption and normal password authentication.

Enter the outgoing mail settings Add your outgoing SMTP server, port 465, SSL/TLS encryption and normal password authentication.

Check your username Make sure your username is your full email address for both incoming and outgoing mail.

Finish and test the account Complete the setup, then send a test email to another address and reply to it. This checks that both sending and receiving are working properly.

Advanced settings to check

If Thunderbird accepts the account but email does not send or receive correctly, check these advanced settings.

Incoming mail

Account type: IMAP
Port: 993
Connection security: SSL/TLS
Authentication method: Normal password
Username: full email address

Outgoing mail

Server type: SMTP
Port: 465
Connection security: SSL/TLS
Authentication method: Normal password
Username: full email address

Troubleshooting

If the account does not work straight away, the problem is usually one of four things: the password, the server name, the port number, or the outgoing mail authentication.

If receiving does not work

Check the incoming server name.
Check the IMAP port is set to 993.
Check SSL/TLS connection security is selected.
Re-enter the mailbox password carefully.

If sending does not work

Check the outgoing SMTP server name.
Check the SMTP port is set to 465.
Check SSL/TLS connection security is selected.
Make sure outgoing authentication is enabled.

Sending problems in Thunderbird are often caused by the outgoing server settings. Check that the SMTP server uses the same full email address and mailbox password as the incoming server.

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