The following five add-ons have recently been added to the Mozilla Thunderbird extensions repository at the Mozilla website. Some of them are not yet compatible with the latest beta of Thunderbird 3. The email user needs to force compatibility in this case with the Nightly Tester Tools add-on (or edit the compatibility setting in the xpi file manually).

Extra Folder Columns

Thunderbird 2 users were able to display extra columns in the mail folder sidebar. These columns could display the size of each folder on the local hard drive, the total number of emails contained within and the amount of emails that have not been read yet. Not so with Thunderbird 3 which does not provide these additional columns for the folders at all.

Extra Folder Columns has been designed for Thunderbird 3 to add those three columns again to the web browser. All three data columns will be displayed by default but the user has the option to remove them individually so that only the columns are displayed that are of interest to the Thunderbird user.

download Extra Folder Columns

Show In/Out

Show In/Out has been designed for Thunderbird users who like to move email conversations, that is all incoming and outgoing emails, to one folder to have access to all emails of a conversation directly. Thunderbird by default does not show if an email was an incoming or outgoing email. That’s where Show In/Out steps in. It adds two new columns to the main window of Thunderbird. The first displays an icon showcasing if the email was incoming or outgoing, the second displays the name of the sender or recipient depending if the email was incoming or outgoing.

The developer has designed the add-on to replace the sender and recipient columns in the Thunderbird main window helping users who like to move all incoming and outgoing emails into the same folder.

download Show In/Out

ThunderBirthDay

ThunderBirthday will display the birthdays of email contacts in the Lightning calendar add-on. The extension has two dependencies that need to be installed before it can be installed. It first needs the Lighting calendar add-on for Thunderbird and second the MoreFunctionsForAddressBook add-on which adds the fields “birthday”, “birthmonth” and “birthyear” to the email address book.

Create a new calendar in Lightning by clicking File>New>Calendar… in the menu bar. Then choose “On My Computer” as location and “Birthdays from the Thunderbird addressbook” as type for your calendar. Also specify the address book to use as a source for birthdays. Finally choose a name for the new calendar.

Now open the “Edit Card” dialog of an address book card and set the birthday in the “Other data” tab. Note that these changes don’t take effect in the calendar until it gets reloaded. To do this either restart Thunderbird or right click on a calendar from the list, then choose “Reload Remote Calendars”.

Also note that the events generated by ThunderBirthDay cannot be modified with Lightning for the moment. Maybe future versions of the extension will be bidirectional.

download ThunderBirthDay

Forward

Thunderbird by default forwards email messages as attachments. This can be changed in Tools → Options → Composition → General so that the email messages are forwarded as inline messages instead. There is also an option in the Message menu to select either attachment or inline as the method of forwarding the selected emails in Thunderbird. This add-on simply moves this option to more prominent locations: The Forward button and Message context menus.

download Forward

Border Colors

If you have multiple email accounts configured in Thunderbird you might know that there is a chance that you send an email to a recipient from a wrong account. Border Colors is a very simple add-on for Thunderbird that color codes each account that has been configured in the email client. The colors have to be selected after the installation of the add-on as black is being used as the default color for all email accounts.

After configuration a border in the color that has been chosen during configuration will be shown when writing emails. A switch between accounts in the compose email window will also change the border color accordingly.

download Bordercolors

I hope you enjoyed this article. Please write a comment if you would like to have your say on a specific add-on mentioned in this article or would like to add one of your favorite Thunderbird add-ons so that other users can benefit from it as well.

Related posts

• Thunderbird 3 Beta 4 Released (41)
• Thunderbird 3 Beta 2 (7)
• 7 Add-ons To Get You Started With Thunderbird 3 (0)
• Thunderbird Quick Folders (2)
• Thunderbird Email Thread Visualizer (2)

The situation will likely change with the final release of the email client. It is on the other hand likely that most Thunderbird add-ons will function correctly if their compatibility is edited manually or by using an add-on like the Nightly Tester Tools.

Buttons [link]

The Buttons add-on adds several new buttons to Thunderbird 3 including buttons to display the next or previous email (as opposed to displaying the next or previous unread email which is the default option in Thunderbird), SMTP server selection, delete junk button that marks the message as junk and deletes it afterwards, HTML and Image on and off buttons or a delete thread button that deletes the entire thread of messages.

Hide Menubar [link]

The Thunderbird 3 menu does not usually need to be displayed all of the time. Especially users with lower screen resolutions might be interested to save screen estate to work more comfortable in the email client. Hide Menubar is a straightforward Thunderbird 3 add-on that hides the Thunderbird 3 menubar automatically. The alt key can be used to switch between hiding and displaying the menubar.

gContactSync [link]

This add-on makes it possible to synchronize contacts between the Thunderbird email client and one or multiple Gmail and Google accounts.

Smooth Wheel [link]

Smooth Wheel offers the ability to fine tune the mouse scrolling smoothness in Thunderbird. The default smoothness does not satisfy many Thunderbird users (and actually Firefox users as well) and this is the add-on to customize the smoothness for a better experience.

Remove Duplicate Messages [link]

Duplicate emails are usually experienced during connection errors or if the mail program or mailboxes got damaged. This add-on cleans duplicate emails easily offering to move or delete them in the email program.

FiltaQuilla [link]

FiltaQuilla adds new filters to Thunderbird extending the automatic email processing options in the email client. It is for example possible to launch or run a file, append to subject, train the email program as good or junk and mark the email as unread or replied.

Foxclocks [link]

Can display multiple clocks in the Thunderbird interface.

Know of any other Thunderbird 3 add-ons that should be in this list? Let us know in the comments.

Related posts

• 5 Useful Thunderbird 3 Add-Ons That You Might Not Have Heard About Yet (3)
• Thunderbird 3 Beta 4 Released (41)
• Thunderbird 3 Beta 2 (7)
• Thunderbird 3 Beta 1 (5)
• Two Quick Email Tips To Save The Day (19)

The release notes contain a huge list of new features and improvements including a new email search with advanced filtering options, global search with autocomplete, smart folders, tabbed email messages, new add-ons manager, improved address book, better Gmail integration and integration into Windows Vista’s search results.

Improvements have been made to overall performance and stability as well as web compatibility and sustainability. The way IMAP connections are handled has been improved in this version of Thunderbird as well. Thunderbird can now download IMAP messages by default in the background “to allow for faster message loading and better offline operation”.

Users who are interested in the new version can download it from the Mozilla Thunderbird website. The usual precautions should be taken considering that this version is still a beta version that should not be used in a production environment. The full release notes can be accessed at this link.

Related posts

• Thunderbird 3 Beta 2 (7)
• 5 Useful Thunderbird 3 Add-Ons That You Might Not Have Heard About Yet (3)
• Thunderbird Quick Folders (2)
• Thunderbird Email Thread Visualizer (2)
• Thunderbird Email Address Crawler (0)

Thunderbird Quick Folders aids email users who work with multiple folders in their email client. The add-on will add a new toolbar to the Thunderbird header that can be used to drag and drop folders into it. These folders act as quick access points to the bookmarked folders. It is possible to access these email folders either by left-clicking on them or pressing the keyboard shortcut Alt 1-9 to go there.

The add-on for the email client is highly flexible and offers extended settings to change functionality and design of the add-on.

Options include changing the colors of the email bookmark tabs, displaying the mail count next to each email folder or to automatically focus on the message list when switching to another bookmarks tab. Quick Folders is available at the official Mozilla Thunderbird website. The add-on for the email client is compatible with all versions of the Thunderbird.

Thunderbird users who like to bookmark individual emails might want to take a look at the Bookmark Emails add-on which we reviewed a while ago at Ghacks.

Related posts

• Thunderbird Email Thread Visualizer (2)
• Thunderbird Email Address Crawler (0)
• Thunderbird Delete Confirmations (0)
• Thunderbird 3 Beta 4 Released (41)
• Thunderbird 3 Beta 2 (7)

The Auto Resize JPEG extension for the Mozilla Thunderbird email client offers another possibility. The extension will automatically resize pictures that are attached in the email client before they are send out by the user.

The Thunderbird extension will automatically recognize jpg image attachments and display a prompt after clicking on the send button. It is possible to optimize the images or skip the optimization. The options of the add-on contain settings to always optimize images in the email client (which will remove the prompt after clicking on the send button) and to specify a minimum height and width. The default values are set to 1024 pixels each. Options to change the quality level would be nice.

The extension for the Thunderbird email client can be very handy for users who regularly send image attachments in their email messages. It can save them time and bandwidth (and probably a few emails from angry recipients who received large emails). Auto Resize JPEG is available from the Mozilla Thunderbird website. It is currently only available for the Windows operating system.

Related posts

• Thunderbird Email Thread Visualizer (2)
• Thunderbird Quick Folders (2)
• Thunderbird Email Address Crawler (0)
• Thunderbird Delete Confirmations (0)
• Thunderbird Archiving Shortcuts (7)

The email client should pick up the update upon its next startup automatically. Thunderbird users can alternatively use the Help > Check For Updates function in the email client or visit the Mozilla Thunderbird website to obtain the update. The vulnerability, which was disclosed on August 1 is not only affecting the email client but also other Mozilla applications included Mozilla Firefox 3.5 or Firefox 3.0.13.

IOActive security researcher Dan Kaminsky reported a mismatch in the treatment of domain names in SSL certificates between SSL clients and the Certificate Authorities (CA) which issue server certificates. In particular, if a malicious person requested a certificate for a host name with an invalid null character in it most CAs would issue the certificate if the requester owned the domain specified after the null, while most SSL clients (browsers) ignored that part of the name and used the unvalidated part in front of the null. This made it possible for attackers to obtain certificates that would function for any site they wished to target. These certificates could be used to intercept and potentially alter encrypted communication between the client and a server such as sensitive bank account transactions.

Related posts

• Thunderbird Security Update To 2.0.0.17 (0)
• Thunderbird 2.0.0.16 Out (0)
• Email Client: Thunderbird 2.0.0.21 (1)
• Thunderbird Quick Folders (2)
• Thunderbird Email Thread Visualizer (2)

Thunderbird by default does not link email conversations in any way. This means that it can sometimes be difficulty to locate all emails of a conversation in the web browser. This is especially true since those emails are usually located in at least two different folders (Sent folder and Email Inbox).

The concept that ThreadVis introduces can be explained with a few words. It processes emails from selected folders (or all emails if the user selects that option) and creates links between emails if they are part of the same conversation.

It then visualizes this conversation in the email header which makes it easy to jump to all emails that are part of it. The emails are color coded in the header. Green dots visualize emails that have been received by the user while red emails are those that have been sent. The time it took for each reply is also shown in the visualisation.

The Thunderbird extension will display a configuration dialog after installation which can be used to define the folders that should be processed and cached by it. It is important to process all relevant folders (e.g. inbox and sent). Some emails are otherwise shown as missing in the visualization.

The visualization can also be displayed in its own separate window which might be useful for some users. ThreadVis is a great Thunderbird add-on for users who want to have better control over email conversations in the email client.

Related posts

• Auto Resize Email Picture Attachments In Thunderbird (6)
• Thunderbird Quick Folders (2)
• Thunderbird Email Address Crawler (0)
• Thunderbird Delete Confirmations (0)
• Thunderbird Archiving Shortcuts (7)

It was never more than a rumor that the Mozilla based email client would go commercial eventually. Now, with the announcement of beta 14 of Postbox came the confirmation that it will indeed be a commercial email client with no free version planned at this stage in time.

A single-user license for Postbox 1.0 will be sold at a regular price of $39.95 giving the user the option to install the email client on any computer that is personally used. Two add-on purchases are available. The first is a family pack for $19.95 which allows up to five family members in the same household to install Postbox with the same license on their computers. The second a lifetime upgrade option for $24.95 which guarantees that all Postbox upgrades will be free forever.

Prices are currently discounted by $10 with the exception of the lifetime upgrade option which can be purchased at a $5 discount. The most interesting question will obviously be how Postbox users and potential users react on the pricing announcement. Will they start looking for free alternatives or purchase a license for the desktop email client? What’s your opinion on the matter?

Related posts

• Two Quick Email Tips To Save The Day (19)
• Thunderbird Security Update To 2.0.0.17 (0)
• Thunderbird Quick Folders (2)
• Thunderbird Email Thread Visualizer (2)
• Thunderbird Email Address Crawler (0)

Another interesting new feature is the quick message preview if multiple email messages have been selected. It basically displays about three lines and the subject of each email in the email window which is a very comfortable way of quickly glancing over multiple emails.

The smart folder mode is another new feature which basically combines folders from multiple email accounts. Instead of having to access multiple email inbox folders or sent folders they can now be accessed combined in the smart folder mode. Other notable changes are better Gmail integration for special folders and foreign languages, the ability to notice properly configured mailing lists and offering ways to respond to these emails and column headings which are can now be configured on a per-folder basis.

The changelog lists 592 new features, changes or bug fixes that the developers had made or added to the new release of Thunderbird.

Interested users should keep in mind that the email client is still a beta version. Caution and regular backups are advised. Users who need email for work should make sure that they have a backup in place in case somethings goes wrong.

Related posts

• Thunderbird 3 Beta 2 (7)
• Thunderbird 3 Beta 4 Released (41)
• 5 Useful Thunderbird 3 Add-Ons That You Might Not Have Heard About Yet (3)
• Two Quick Email Tips To Save The Day (19)
• Thunderbird Quick Folders (2)

The installation of the Facebook add-on for Outlook takes only a few seconds and requires no user interaction at all. New buttons are added to the Outlook toolbar that become visible on the next start of the email client.

It is obviously required to log into Facebook before information can be retrieved and send to the online service. This is done by clicking on the Login to Facebook button in Outlook. It will spawn a new browser window or tab that is displaying the Facebook login page. The user has to log in and confirm the log in in Outlook to be able to use the controls in the email client.

From then on its possible to use all the features provided by the Microsoft Outlook add-on. One interesting option provided is to update the Facebook status using the music track played in either Windows Media Player or iTunes.

Related posts

• Recover Lost Outlook Passwords (3)
• Outlook 2007 SP1 (5)
• Microsoft Outlook Quickbooks Addin (2)
• Microsoft Outlook Mail Time Zone Plugin (7)
• Microsoft Outlook Macro To Save Images In Emails (0)

TwInBox, which was formerly known as OutTwit, is compatible with Microsoft Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007 running on Windows XP or Windows Vista with the likelihood that it will also work in Windows 7. Installation is a breeze. All that needs to be done is to run the setup (while Outlook is closed). The TwInbox add-on will automatically be displayed in the Microsoft Outlook toolbar on the next start of the email client.

The first thing a new user needs to do is to get into the options and enter the Twitter username and password to link these to the Outlook account. A new Outlook folder for Twitter messages has to be created in the same interface as well. There are other options like displaying notifications whenever a new Twitter message arrives.

The Outlook add-on allows a user to perform common Twitter tasks like updating the Twitter status, receiving new messages or replying to messages. There are also quite a few options that could be very interesting for some Twitter users including the ability to handle Twitter messages like emails with the option to archive, manage, group and search them. There are also options to track keywords, upload and post pictures and files that have been send to Outlook, automatically sort messages in sender folders or to assign custom folders and categories to new messages. There is also a graph available that is displaying Twitter usage statistics.

TwInbox (via Cybernetnews) can be downloaded directly from the developer’s homepage.

Related posts

• Outlook Tips: Multiple Outlook Instances (6)
• Outlook 2007 SP1 (5)
• Microsoft Outlook Quickbooks Addin (2)
• Microsoft Outlook Mail Time Zone Plugin (7)
• Microsoft Outlook Macro To Save Images In Emails (0)

Putting links in the email client is a great way of being able to launch programs quickly without having to start them from the computer desktop or start menu. The installation and configuration of the add-on is similar to that of the Firefox add-on.

It begins by downloading the add-on for Thunderbird on the Mozilla add-on’s website. It can then be installed in the email client by going to the Tools > Addons menu once the add-on has been downloaded to the computer system. A click on the install button will open a file browser window in which the downloaded file has to be selected.

A right-click on the main Thunderbird toolbar and the selection of customize will display a new button called applications. This button has to be dragged and dropped into the toolbar. Nothing is shown at that time. A right-click on that blank space opens the context menu of the Thunderbird add-on with the option to add new buttons to the toolbar. This opens a file browser giving the user the option to select an application to add to the toolbar.

A few advanced properties can be set by right-clicking an icon in the toolbar. It is for example possible to add command line arguments or a keyboard shortcut.

There is one bug that becomes apparent after closing Thunderbird for the first time. The buttons will show up twice the next time the web browser is started. There is currently no workaround available for that. Deleting one button will remove the other one as well on the next start of the email client. The Thunderbird add-on can be downloaded from the Mozilla website.

Related posts

• Thunderbird Delete Confirmations (0)
• Select All Emails From Sender In Thunderbird (1)
• Display Timezones In Thunderbird (2)
• Two Quick Email Tips To Save The Day (19)
• Thunderbird: Unsubscribe Mailing Lists (1)

The mailto links in the format mailto:email@example.com are launched with the default application that has been set in the Firefox web browser. To change that one needs to open the options of the web browser. Windows users go to Tools > Options to open the Firefox options.

Users then need to locate the applications tab and filter for the term mailto. The menu should then look pretty much like the menu in the screenshot above. They then need to click on the pulldown menu on the right side to change the default email client in Firefox. Displayed are the current email client, the web based email clients Yahoo Mail and Gmail, the option to always ask the user and to select another email client not on the list.

The last option opens the file browser which makes it possible to select an executable on the computer system. It is therefor possible to select installed and portable email clients on the local computer system. It does feel a bit strange that neither Windows Live Mail nor Aol Mail are available from the menu.

Related posts

• Firefox WebMail Notifier (10)
• Yahoo Mail, Search And Messenger Upgrades (2)
• Yahoo Mail Notifier (1)
• Xoopit To Become Yahoo Mail Exclusive (5)
• Working with several Firefox profiles (21)

But no matter what type of user you are, you will appreciate the plugins available for the client. There are plenty to choose from and, unlike the many extensions/addons for Thunderbird, all of them are useful. In this article I will introduce you to a few of the plugins that are must-haves for any type of user.

Make sure you have them

During the installation of Claws Mail you should have noticed the various plugin packages available. If you didn’t install them initially, go back and do so now. It’s simple: Open up your Add/Remove Software utility, do a search for “claws” (no quotes), find the plugin entries available. You will notice all of the plugins available will have the string “plugin” (again, no quotes) listed in their name. Install any/all plugins you feel you might need.

Now, on to the plugins I feel are must haves.

GtkHtml2 HTML Viewer

Figure 1

One aspect of Claws Mail that you will notice quickly is its inability to write HTML mail. This was done on purpose as the dev team felt like HTML mail was not a good thing (I tend to agree). But I do get a lot of HTML mail (mostly from companies that only send HTML mail) and need to be able to read them. In order to do this I load this plugin.

Not all HTML emails will be rendered. But when one does render you will see it appear as you do in Figure 1. You also have to tell Claws Mail to load the images found in the email. When it does get the images, the emails render perfectly. You can configure GtkHtml2 from within the Preferences window.

Notification

Figure 2

This plugin allows you to select a method for Claws Mail to inform you that email has arrived. I set my email client up to check mail automatically, so having a notification is nice. To configure the notification go to the Preferences window under Notification. There are five different types of notifications:

• Banner: A scrolling banner you can configure to tell you what new mail comes in.
• Popup: A small popup that appears when new mail arrives (see Figure 2).
• Command: Create your own method of notification (such as play a sound with the play command).
• LDC: Enable display of message on external LCD monitor – will need an LCD server running.
• SysTrayIcon: Enable a small system tray icon that will display a message.

Mail archiver

Figure 3

I don’t know about you but I get a lot of mail. And much of that mail is work related. Because that mail is critical I have to keep copies for a long time. But I don’t necessarily want those folders to accumulate thousands upon thousands of emails. For this I use the Mail archiver plugin. This plugin will allow you to save a compressed archive of any folder on your Claws Mail client. To create an archive go to the Tools menu and select Create Archive. When the new window pops up (see Figure 3) enter the information you need and click OK. The archive will appear in the folder you’ve chosen. You’re all backed up.

Final thoughts

There are plenty of other plugins to play with for Claws Mail. The three plugins listed above will help extend Claws Mail beyond its default capabilities and make it an even more user-friendly, powerful experience.

Related posts

• Claws Mail: The unsung powerhouse email client (16)
• VoxOx Unified Messaging (3)
• Two Quick Email Tips To Save The Day (19)
• Track Emails (3)
• Thunderbird Security Update To 2.0.0.17 (0)

Claws Mail is based on GTK+ so it will install on nearly any Linux machine running X Windows. It features:

• Multiple Accounts
• Threaded Display
• Filtering
• IPv6 support
• Mbox import/export
• Clickable URLS
• Addressbook
• Granular configuration
• Pre and Post processing filters
• Redirecting
• SSL Certificate Manager
• Address Harvesting via folder or messages

And much more.

Getting and installing

If you open up your Add/Remove Software utility and do a search for “claws” (no quotes) you will find numerous listings. Many of these listings will include a vast array of plugins available. The minimum you want to install is:

• claws-mail
• claws-mail-extra-plugins
• claws-mail-plugins

jWhat the “extra-plugins” will do is install a number of the basic plugins for you. Outside of that you will want to go through the list of all the possible candidate to see what you will need. I also installed:

• claws-themes
• claws-mail-pgpinline

Your needs may dictate other installations. There are thirty-three possible packages to install.

Once you have made your choices click Apply to finish up the installation. Once installed you will find the Claws Mail menu entry in the Internet menu of your Main menu.

First Run

When you first open up Claws Mail you will have to walk through a very straight-forward wizard to set up your account. Once you are finished with the account set up you are ready to rock.

The user interface

Figure 1

As you can see (in Figure 1) the interface will be familiar to anyone that has used any email client of any nature.

One of the first things that might be of issue (at least it was for me) is the date. Notice that the form of the date is YY/MM/DD. If you want to edit the date format you have to open up the Preferences window by click the Configuration menu in the main window. Once inside that window click the Summary sub-section of the Display section. Scroll all the way down until you see the Date Format text area. The default is set up as:

%y/%m/%d(%a) %H:%M

You can arrange this any way you like. My preference is:

%m/%d(%a)/%y %H:%M

NOTE: The (%a) displays the day of the week.

Importing mail box

I had 100% success at importing my Thunderbird Inbox with Claws. To do this click on the File menu and select “Import mbox file”.  A small window will open up where you need to locate your Mbox file and a Destination folder. For a Thunderbird Inbox file you will need to then navigate to:

~/.mozilla-thunderbird/XXX.default/Mail/Local Folders/

and select Inbox (or whatever folder you need to import).

Where XXX is a random string of characters created upon installation of Thunderbird.

In Figure 1 you will see some 8,000 imported emails. It worked perfectly.

Harvesting addresses

Figure 2

This is one of my favorite features of Claws Mail. When I have had to move from installation to installation, one of the things I tend to forget it to export my address book. This isn’t a problem with Claws Mail. With all of the email imported into Claws Mail I can then just harvest all of the addresses I need from within a folder. To do this I allow email to collect in my Inbox and then click on the Tools menu and select the Harvest submenu and then the “From Folder” entry. A small window will open (see Figure 2) where you give your address book a name, a size, and tell the harvester which header field to harvest from. Once you do that click OK and the harvesting will begin.

From within my 8,000+ emails the Harvester grabed over 1,400 addresses. The only problem is the Harvester isn’t terribly intelligent as to how to label these addresses. So most likely you will have to go back through and edit each address.

Final thoughts

You can go through all of the features, one by one, of Claws Mail and spend all day tweaking and tinkering. As I said, Claws Mail will make the power user feel right at home. But don’t think this client is only for the elite user…Claws Mail can be used by anyone. It’s easy, it’s powerful, it’s reliable, and it’s all about Linux. Give Claws Mail a try…you most likely won’t turn back.

Related posts

• Claws Mail: Must-have plugins (7)
• VoxOx Unified Messaging (3)
• Two Quick Email Tips To Save The Day (19)
• Track Emails (3)
• Thunderbird Security Update To 2.0.0.17 (0)

If you want to do that in the Thunderbird email client you might need to change the way emails are sorted and displayed to be effective. The Gather The Sender add-on for Thunderbird makes this process more comfortable.

Gather The Sender adds a new entry to the right-click context menu in Thunderbird. The new entry can be used to select all email messages in the same email folder from the same sender. It therefor takes two clicks (one right-click on an email and one left-click on the “Select the mails from the same sender” entry) to select all emails from that sender.

This is an excellent way of archiving emails and cleaning the inbox of the email client. Gather The Sender is an add-on for the Mozilla Thunderbird email client. It is compatible with all Thunderbird 2.x versions.

Related posts

• Thunderbird Quick Folders (2)
• Thunderbird Email Thread Visualizer (2)
• Thunderbird Email Address Crawler (0)
• Thunderbird Delete Confirmations (0)
• Thunderbird Archiving Shortcuts (7)

Probably one of the most comfortable ways of allowing users to set their own default mail client in Windows XP is the free and portable software program DefaultMail.

DefaultMail will automatically recognize the installed email clients and display them in a list. It is then up to the user to select on of these email clients and set it as the default email client. This change will only affect the currently logged in user and no one else.

There is no way of adding new email clients to the list of recognized clients which could be problematic if portable email clients are used by the user. It is also not possible to add online email services such as Gmail or Yahoo Mail to the program. The software can also be used to undo previous changes. DefaultMail (via JK Web) is a portable software for the Windows XP operating system.

Related posts

• Gmail Backup (19)
• Use Gmail To Host And Share Photos (6)
• Two Quick Email Tips To Save The Day (19)
• Tracking Gmail Account Usage (2)
• Synchronize Contacts Between Thunderbird And Gmail (12)

The main problem that arises when using the Word HTML rendering engine is that Microsoft Outlook 2010 will not support web standards like CSS or background images. This could very well mean that Outlook 2010 users will be stuck with broken HTML emails for the next years after the release. Below is an image that is showing a HTML email in both Microsoft Outlook 2000 and Outlook 2010:

Microsoft Outlook 2000 was using the Internet Explorer rendering engine to display HTML emails. Microsoft mentions benefits that Outlook users gain by using Microsoft Word as their email authoring tool which include automatic styles and templates and SmartArt among other benefits. It would also not be in the best interest performance wise to use a different rendering engine for the display of HTML emails. (via Email Standards)

The initiators of the Fix Outlook protest website are making use of Twitter to rally protesters from all over the world. Every Twitter user that mentions fixoutlook.org in their tweets will automatically partake in the protest. The avatar icons of users will be displayed on the Fix Outlook website. Currently more than 15500 users have already joined the protest.

Related posts

• Microsoft Outlook Quickbooks Addin (2)
• Microsoft Outlook Mail Time Zone Plugin (7)
• Microsoft Outlook Macro To Save Images In Emails (0)
• Microsoft Outlook Facebook Add-On (1)
• Microsoft Outlook Express Viewer (1)

Thunderbird users should therefor make sure that they download and install the new version of the desktop email client as soon as possible. The download is available for all supported operating systems (Microsoft Windows, Linux and Apple OS)

The portable version of Thunderbird 2.0.22 has already been created by Caschy. It can be downloaded from his website directly.

Users who want to know about the changes before they update the client should check the release notes page frequently. It won’t be long until the page gets updated as well.

Related posts

• Thunderbird Security Update To 2.0.0.17 (0)
• Thunderbird Delete Confirmations (0)
• Thunderbird 3 Beta 1 (5)
• Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0.0.18 (1)
• Email Client: Thunderbird 2.0.0.21 (1)

Enabling POP3 in Gmail is therefor a two-step process. POP3 needs to be enabled on the Gmail website first before the other email client is configured to connect to Gmail using the POP3 protocol.

Enabling Gmail POP3

Open the Gmail homepage, log into your Gmail account and click on the [Settings] link in the top right corner of the screen to open the Gmail configuration. Now select the [Forwarding and POP/IMAP] link which should open a page just like the one you see below on the screenshot.

You basically got two options here to enable POP3. The first [Enable POP for all mail (even mail that's already been downloaded)] enables POP3 in Gmail for all email messages even those that have already been retrieved while the second [Enable POP for mail that arrives from now on] enables POP3 from that moment on which means that old emails cannot be retrieved. A click on the Save Changes button will save the changes and allow POP3 connections.

Gmail POP3 Data

It is time to create the accounts in the email client now that POP3 has been enabled in Gmail. The procedure is different depending on the email client at hand. Below are the values that need to be entered into the email client.

Email Address: Enter your full Gmail email address
Password: Enter your email password
Incoming Server: pop.gmail.com
Incoming Server Port: 995
Outgoing Server: smtp.gmail.com
Outgoing server (SMTP) port: 587
Encryption: TLS

You can check out the help pages over at Gmail that contain configuration walkthroughs for various popular email clients.

Related posts

• How To Setup Gmail In External Mail Clients Properly (7)
• Two Quick Email Tips To Save The Day (19)
• Thunderbird 3 Beta 2 (7)
• Gmail Backup (19)
• Gmail Always Use HTTPS (6)