Given my boisterous attitude towards all things open source, particularly Mozillas Firefox web browser, you might be surprised to learn that I have always shown resistance towards the 'other' Mozilla product, namely Thunderbird.

My resistance was never unwarranted though. You see I was an Outlook devotee for many years, mainly because I used it in a bushiness environment at work, so I naturally used it at home without giving it much thought. But as my faith and confidence in open source products grew, thanks to Firefox being so damned terrific, I started to think about how I might be able to replace Outlook with something a bit more, um... free and less bloated.

So my first foray into Thunderbird last year didn't afford it the best chance, as I had started thinking going totally web based - with Gmail. Gmail is great, but as I have mentioned on Rusty Lime before I think the interface leaves a lot to be desired and the usability is dreadful. But I had to give up those 'luxuries' for the benefit of having my email accessible anywhere any time.

I had missed certain things though, like being able to send a fancy HTML newsletter to our subscribers, offline access, and the speed of a desktop client.

But now Gmail and Thunderbird can be used together - in seamless harmony - in sync. I've been using them in this way for a few weeks now and I think it's safe to say I am now a Thunderbird evangelist.

Using Gmail's IMAP configuration, you can sync your Gmail with your local Thunderbird client. This is cool because if I send an email from my Gmail account from another location, the message will also appear in my sent items in Thunderbird when I get home. Likewise doing anything within Thunderbird will be evident when I log into my Gmail account elsewhere. Totally in sync.

Setting up Thunderbird to sync with Gmail is easy. The following steps might look scary but it only takes a few minutes.

• Login to Gmail and hit Settings
• Go to the Forwarding and POP/IMAP section
• Select the Enable IMAP button
• Hit the Save Settings button
• Open Thunderbird and select Tools > Account Settings
• Click Add Account
• Select the Email account radio button and click Next. The Identity screen appears
• Enter your full name in the Your Name field. Enter your full Google Mail email address (username@googlemail.com) in the Email Address field and click Next
• Select IMAP as the type of incoming server you are using. Enter imap.googlemail.com in the Incoming Server field
• Set the Outgoing Server to smtp.googlemail.com and click Next
• Enter your Google Mail username (including @googlemail.com) in the Incoming Username and Outgoing Username fields and click Next
• Enter a name for your email account in the Account Name field and click Next
• Verify your account information in the dialogue box and click Finish
• Select Server Settings from the folder list below your new account
• Update the Port value to 993
• In the Security Settings section, select SSL from the Use secure connection options
• Select Check for messages at startup and Automatically download new messages
• Click Outgoing Server (SMTP) in the folder list
• Select the smtp.googlemail.com (Default) entry from the list and click Edit. The SMTP Server page appears
• Enter smtp.googlemail.com as the Server Name and set the Port to 587
• Select Username and password and enter your Google Mail username (including @googlemail.com) in the Username field
• Select TLS from the Use secure connection radio buttons and click OK
• Click OK to save your changes and exit the Account Settings dialogue

Now you're done. The problem here though is that Thunderbird is essentially grabbing your email from Google's server every time you click on a message. There is a clear delay from the time you click until the time the email is served.

To combat this you need to setup Thunderbird for off-line access. Here's how.

• Go to File > Offline > Offline Settings
• Select the Make the messages available in my inbox available when I am working offline tick box
• Hit the Select folders for offline use button
• Check the boxes next to the folders you want to make available offline and hit OK, and OK again
• Go to File > Offline > Download/Synchronise now

And now the waiting begins. Depending on the amount of email you have, this could take a long time. Watch the progress in the lower left and you will see what I mean. But it's worth the wait.

In my next tutorial I will show you some of the cool stuff you can do in Thunderbird that might put you a step closer to using it full time.

Happy Thunderbirding.