Registering email accounts

In this section, you will learn how to configure Thunderbird for use with your Gmail and/or RiseUp accounts.

Step 1. Select Start > Programs > Mozilla Thunderbird > Mozilla Thunderbird

or double-click: to activate the Thunderbird program.

When you start Thunderbird for the first time, the Import Wizard screen appears with two options for importing messages and account settings as follows:

Figure 1: The Import Wizard screen

Note: Although the import process is automated, this guide also describes how to manually register your email accounts with Thunderbird.

Step 2. Check the Don't Import Anything option and click: to launch the New Account Wizard.

2.1 How to configure Thunderbird for your RiseUp account

You must register your email accounts with Thunderbird in order to access and use them. Account registration is performed through the New Account Wizard feature that automatically launches itself if you do not have any existing accounts. To add more accounts later on, you can manually run the New Account Wizard by performing the following steps:

Step 1. Select File > New > Account.

Figure 2: The Account Wizard - New Account Setup screen

Step 2. Check the Email account option.

Step 3. Click: to activate the Identity screen as follows:

Figure 3: The Account Wizard - Identity screen

Step 4. Enter the name you will to use to identify yourself as being the sender of emails in the Your name: text field. If you intend to create an anonymous email account, either leave this field blank or enter information that does not provide any clues about your identity.

Step 5. Enter the email address of your account in the Email address: text field.

Step 6. Click: to activate the Server Information screen as follows:

Figure 4: The Account Wizard - Server Information screen

Step 7. Check the IMAP option.

Note: POP and IMAP are the two of the most widely-used methods for downloading your messages through an email client.

Step 8. Enter 'mail.riseup.net' into the Incoming and Outgoing Server: text fields.

Step 9. Click: to activate the User Names screen as follows:

Figure 5: The Account Wizard - User Names screen

Step 10. Enter your RiseUp login name in the Incoming User Name: text field. Note: The Incoming User Name: is the name that appears before the '@riseup.net' part of that address.

Step 11. Click: to activate the Account Name screen as follows:

Figure 6: The Account Wizard - Account Name screen

Step 12. Enter the name you want to give this account. It can be anything you wish.

Step 13. Click: to activate the Congratulations screen as follows:

Figure 7: The Account Wizard - Congratulations screen

Step 14. Click: to complete registering your RiseUp account with Thunderbird.

The Thunderbird main console should now resemble the following:

Figure 8: The Thunderbird main console displaying the newly registered account

Now that your account has been registered with Thunderbird, you must configure the correct security settings for receiving and sending email.

Warning: Thunderbird may attempt to connect and download your emails immediately. Click Cancel to ignore the email password request screen for the moment, and continue configuring your RiseUp account.

2.2 How to Configure the Security Settings for RiseUp

When you first register your RiseUp account, Thunderbird will be configured to access it through an unsecured communication channel. However, RiseUp supports the use of a secure, encrypted connection between itself and your computer. Before you begin sending or receiving messages, you must configure a few Thunderbird settings to enable this feature.

Step 1. Select Tools > Account Settings to activate the Account Settings - Work Account screen as follows:

Figure 9: The Account Settings - Work Account screen

Step 2. Select Server Settings in the sidebar.

The Server Settings screen lets you specify how the connection to the RiseUp email server is made.

Step 3. Check the SSL option in the right-hand window to set the appropriate port for downloading email:

Figure 10: The Security Settings in SSL mode

Step 4. Select the Outgoing Server (SMTP) option in the Account Settings sidebar.

Figure 11: The Account Settings - Outgoing Server (SMTP) screen

Step 5. Click: to activate the SMTP Server screen.

Step 6. Check the SSL option.

Figure 12: The SMTP Server screen

Step 7. Click:

You have now enabled the receiving and sending of email through an encrypted connection.

When connecting to your email provider through the IMAP protocol, you will typically download only a brief description, called a header, of each new email. You must open a message in order to download its full content. This means that newly-received messages may not be accessible while you are disconnected from the Internet. Fortunately, Thunderbird can be configured to download the full content of new messages immediately and make them available for reading while you are offline. To enable this feature, perform the following steps:

Step 8. Select the Offline and Disk Space in the sidebar.

Figure 13: The Offline & Disk Space Screen

Step 9. Check the two boxes in the top right-hand corner of the window as shown in Figure 13.

Step 10. Click: to finish configuring your RiseUp account and return to the Thunderbird main console.

You are now ready to download your messages from RiseUp.

Step 1. Click: the button to display the Account Password screen as follows:

Figure 14: The Account Password screen

Step 2. Enter your RiseUp account password and click:

Any new email messages will now be downloaded from the email server to your computer.

2.3 How to configure your Gmail account with Thunderbird

Thunderbird also makes it easy for you to send and receive messages using a Gmail account. If you do not have a Gmail account, you can create one at https://mail.google.com. To use Gmail with Thunderbird, you must check a key option in Gmail, then configure Thunderbird very much as you did for your RiseUp account. While you are modifying the Gmail account settings, you should also enable its secure webmail login feature as well.

2.3.1 Configuring Thunderbird for Gmail

Before entering your Gmail account information into Thunderbird, you must first configure Gmail to 'listen' for or detect connections from external email programs.

Step 1. Log in to your Gmail account using the following secure address https://mail.google.com.

Step 2. Click the Settings link near the upper right-hand corner of your browser window to display the Gmail Settings page.

Step 3. Click: to display the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab.

Step 4. Check the Enable IMAP option in the IMAP Access section as follows:

Figure 15: The IMAP Access section of the Gmail Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab.

Step 5. Click: to save your changes.

Note: You should modify one additional setting while you are making configuration changes, although doing so is not required in order to use Gmail with Thunderbird. Configure Gmail to use HTTPS for all webmail connections, to protect yourself in the event that you accidentally access your account through the unsecured HTTP address.

Step 6. Click: near the upper-right corner of your browser window, to display the Gmail Settings page.

Step 7. Select the Always use HTTPS option in the Browser connection section as follows:

Figure 16: The Browser connection section of the Gmail General Settings tab.

Step 8. Click: to save your changes.

You are now ready to create your Gmail account within Thunderbird

2.3.2 How to Register Gmail with Thunderbird

Thunderbird offers a simplified registration process for Gmail accounts, but using this method will configure Thunderbird to retrieve your email using the POP protocol. If you prefer to use the IMAP protocol, you must register the account manually, as described below.

To begin the registration process:

Step 1. Select File > New > Account

Step 2. Check the Email Account option as follows:

Figure 17: The Account Wizard - New Account Setup screen

Step 3. Click: to activate the Identity screen as follows:

Figure 18: The Account Wizard - Identity screen

Step 4. Enter the name you will to use to identify yourself as being the sender of emails in the Your name: text field. If you intend to create an anonymous email account, either leave this field blank or enter information that does not provide any clues about your identity.

Step 5. Enter the email address of your account in the Email address: text field.

Step 6. Click: to activate the Server Information screen as follows:

Figure 19: The Server Information screen

Step 7. Check the IMAP server option

Step 8. Enter imap.googlemail.com for the incoming and smtp.googlemail.com for the outgoing server details as shown in Figure 19.

Note: If you have already registered RiseUp or another IMAP email account in Thunderbird, you will not be asked for the outgoing server details as shown in Figure 19 and Figure 20. Instead, you will need to enter that information after you have completed the registration process, as described in section 2.3.3 How to Configure Security Settings for Gmail below.

Step 9. Click: to activate the User Names screen as follows:

Figure 20: The User Names screen

Step 10. Verify that the incoming and outgoing user names match your Gmail login name.

Step 11. Click: to activate the Account Name screen as follows:

Figure 21: The Account Name screen

Step 12. Enter a name for this account.

Step 13. Click: to activate the Congratulations screen as follows:

Figure 22: The Congratulations screen

Step 14. Verify that all details you have entered are correct and click:

Now that your Gmail account is registered in Thunderbird, you need to configure the correct security settings for receiving and sending email. This is described below.

Warning: Thunderbird may attempt to connect and download your emails immediately. Click Cancel to ignore the email password request screen for the moment, and continue configuring your Gmail account.

2.3.3 How to Configure Security Settings for Gmail

When you first register your Gmail account, Thunderbird will be configured to access it through an unsecured communication channel. As with RiseUp, Gmail supports the use of a secure, encrypted connection between itself and your computer, but you must change a few Thunderbird settings to enable this feature. You should do this before sending or receiving any messages.

Step 1. Select: Tools > Account Settings to activate the Account Settings screen as follows:

Figure 23: The Account Settings screen

Step 2. Select the Server Settings option on the left side of the Account Settings screen.

Step 3. Check the SSL option in the Security Settings section of the screen as follows:

Figure 24: The Account Settings screen

Step 4. Select the Outgoing Server (SMTP) option on the left side of the Account Settings screen to activate the Outgoing Server (SMTP) Settings screen.

Note: If you had previously registered RiseUp or another IMAP email account in Thunderbird and were not prompted for the outgoing server details in section 2.3.2 How to Register Gmail with Thunderbird, then you should continue the registration process from Step 5 below, in order to create a new outgoing server for use with Gmail. However, if you were prompted for this information in the previous section, then you should skip ahead to Step 10 and continue the registration process from there on.

Step 5. Click: to activate the SMTP Server screen.

Step 6. Fill in the Description and Server Name fields, then check the User name and password option and fill in the User Name field as shown in Figure 25.

Figure 25: The Gmail SMTP Server screen

Step 7. Click: to return to the Account Settings screen.

Step 8. Select your Gmail account from the left side of the Account Settings screen.

Step 9. Select the outgoing Gmail server that you created in Step 5 from the Outgoing Server (SMTP) list as follows:

Figure 26: Configuring Gmail to use the new outgoing server

Step 10. Select the Outgoing Server (SMTP) option on the left side of the Account Settings screen to activate the Outgoing Server (SMTP) Settings screen.

Step 11. Click: to activate the SMTP Server screen, then check the SSL option as shown in Figure 25 above.

Step 12. Click: to return to the Account Settings screen.

Thunderbird will now send and receive email through a secure connection.

Step 13. Select the Offline and Disk Space option in the sidebar.

Figure 27: The Offline & Disk Space Screen

Step 14. Check both options in the Offline section at the top-right corner of the window as shown in Figure 27.

Step 15. Click: to complete the configuration of your Gmail account and return to the Thunderbird main console.

You are now ready to download your messages from Gmail.

Step 1. Click: to display the Mail Server Password Required screen as follows:

Figure 28: The Mail Server Password Required screen

Step 2. Enter your password and click:

Any new email messages will now be downloaded from the email server to your computer.