I’ve been using Outlook Express for a while now, and I’m considering a new E-Mail program for my computer now that I’ve upgraded it and had to do a re-install of the OS and so on.
I’ve been really happy with FireFox ever since I upgraded it, based almost entirely upon advice I received here on the boards, and when I went to re-install it I saw that Mozilla also has an e-mail programme (Thunderbird).
Anyone know much about it, or have any thoughts/advice on it that might be worth sharing?
It’s a great program, simple, clean with all the features you might want. It installs quickly and seamlessly, imports your address books from almost any other program, and of course, is free.
Therefore, why not give it a try? If you don’t like it, you can uninstall it and go back to Outlook, but I’ll bet you’ll learn to like it. There is a very good Mozilla forum too, if you run into problems, or post here.
Thunderbird is stable and not as prone to security problems as Outlook Express. It is very capable and is also easy to learn and use. I recommend it highly.
I recommend it as well.
I used web-based gmail until I got this laptop, then I thought I would give it a try. Outlook express was not that helpful when I got it to work, so I got Thunderbird. Never thought twice about it, other than the fact that when you reply to emails it starts you at the bottom, so you have to scroll up or delete all that came before. I don’t mind it enough to worry about a solution, though I’m sure there is one.
Brendon Small
Been using it for a couple of years now, and have always been very happy with it.
try Tools->Account Settings then pick 'Composition and Addressing" from the list and you’ll find the setting you need …
And that’s why I love Thunderbird – it’s quick & easy to set up & use, while highly customizable if you like to play with the knobs & dials.
Eh, it’s ok. I like Outlook Express better for newsgroups, and Outlook syncs better with my phone and has a decent calendar app, but I like Thunderbird on my personal PC. Default sort is the opposite of what I like (not a big deal, a click fixes it). I like the Firefox style spell-check in Thunderbird that alerts me as I misspell rather than waiting until send.
I don’t feel it stands out above Outlook like Firefox does above IE, but while I have Outlook and Express installed I only use Thunderbird (at home).
Try it out.
The only problem with Thunderbird is that when an Outlook user sends you an invitation to a scheduled event, you can’t respond to it (or, often, see what the date and time of the event is).
Apart from that, yeah, Thunderbird every time. I use it, I think it’s great.
I switched from Outlook to Thunderbird about a year ago and have never looked back. I’ve never experienced any of the crashes or data losses that I did on Outlook; I’ve never had problems with messages that got stuck in the outbox (which I had frequently in Outlook).
I love the extensibility of Thunderbird, and I think the integration of junk mail filtering is just great.
If I could figure out how to backup my emails and addresses on it, I’d give it 100%, As it is, I give it 95%
To back up your addresses, open your address book and go to Tools > Export. Just choose a location, and it will export an LDIF file with your addresses in it. If you have more than one address book, i think you need to export a different file for each address book. Just go to Tools > Import to bring your addresses back in.
There are a few different ways to back up your emails. Personally, i just copy and backup my Thunderbird profile folder, which has an address that looks like this:
C:\Documents and Settings[user account]\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\hjy4fw74.default\Mail
Once you copy everything in that folder, all the mail is saved and you can easily import it later if you have any problems.
Thanks cookie!
You could try MozBackup which backs up Firefox also.
I also recommend Lightning which is a nice calendar add-on for Thunderbird.
OK, I must be an idiot. I cannot get Thunderbird to recognize the Lightning extension. I downloaded the extension and put the file in the <extensions> folder in the Thunderbird file and it still will not recognize it. What am I doing wrong?
Done-good to know, thanks
What you’re doing wrong is you’re failing to read the instructions. From the download page:
No, actually I did read the instructions and I can’t get Thunderbird to see the new extension. I tried saving it to the desktop. That didn’t work, so I moved it to the Thunderbird extensions folder. That didn’t work either. In both cases, when I click on Add-Ons in Thunderbird, Lightning isn’t there.
Did you get as far as installing it? At the bottom left of the Add-ons dialog box is an Install button. Press that and you will get the usual file-selection dialog. Navigate to the folder with the extension and hit the open button.
Thank you so much! I actually hadn’t looked into it at all, but it was a quick fix. Actually, I just turned off quoting it in the reply at all, but yeah…
Sorry it to so long to get a thanks out. I had completely forgotten about writing in this thread, so I came in to see if I could add anything. Of course, instead of adding to that conversation, I had to simply come in and say thanks!
Brendon Small
For some reason the program hangs on “saving to drafts” on my computer. It still saves it to the drafts folder and it still sends the e-Mail it just kind of hangs there on “Saving to Drafts” until I cancel it. No biggie. I still use it.