# How do I set up Thunderbird?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-set-up-thunderbird/317797>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 19, 2005, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-set-up-thunderbird/317797 "2005-08-19T19:51:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Aceospades](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/848f3c/32.png) [@Aceospades](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aceospades)\
**Post date:** [August 19, 2005, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-set-up-thunderbird/317797/1 "2005-08-19T19:51:03Z")

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Alright, I just downloaded thunderbird from mozilla. I’ve never used outlook or anything like this before and I can’t even get past the initial setup. All I want to do is get it to use my hotmail account so then I can forward all my spam as an attachment to [blue forg](http://www.bluesecurity.com/) instead of one at a time. I use peoplepc dialup for my internet connection and have windows XP. I use firefox most of the time. Can anyone here help me with step by step instructions please?

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**Author:** ![Nanoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)\
**Post date:** [August 19, 2005, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-set-up-thunderbird/317797/2 "2005-08-19T21:14:22Z")

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Hotmail isn’t designed to be downloaded to email client, and as such doesn’t support standard POP3. (Probably the setup doesn’t make any sense to you). _However_, someone _has_ created the [Webmail](http://webmail.mozdev.org/index.html) extension to allow this type of thing to work.

I myself haven’t used it though, so I can’t say if or how it works.

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**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\
**Post date:** [August 20, 2005, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-set-up-thunderbird/317797/3 "2005-08-20T07:00:28Z")

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Yeah, as **Nanoda** says, Hotmail does not support a regular pop email client. Because it is a Microsoft product, you can only really check your Hotmail with MS email clients like Outlook.

If you get a better free email account like Google Gmail, however, you can check it using clients like Thunderbird.

As for the extension that **Nanoda** linked to, i’ve heard varying reports about how well it works with Hotmail.