Thunderbird

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Introduction

Thunderbird is the latest evolution of the once integrated Mozilla mail client -- which in itself was an evolution of Netscape. While we still recommend using pine, Thunderbird has some benefits. It has a nice GUI, the ability to display HTML e-mails, and a built in Junk mail detector -- just to name a few.

If you're using a Peyton Hall Linux system, Thunderbird is maintained on our central NFS share and can be launched by typing thunderbird at the command-line while in an X Windows session. If, however, you want to install it on a stand-alone machine such as a laptop or Windows desktop, the latest version can be found at http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/.

Setup for accessing your Astro mail

The instructions for setting up Thunderbird are very similar under Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.

1. Get to the New Account Setup Box:
   • If it's the first time you're running it you'll probably get an import settings box. Close that and then you'll get the New Account Setup box. Close this as well.
2. Open the Account Settings dialog box:
   • On Windows or the Mac go to Tools -> Account Settings.
   • On Linux this can be found under Edit -> Account Settings.
3. Click the Add Account option.
4. Select E-mail Account and click Continue
5. Enter Your Name as you'd like it to appear on your e-mail, and fill in your E-Mail Addresss. Click Continue
6. Select IMAP and type mail.astro.princeton.edu into the Incoming Server field.
   • If this was your first time setting up an account in Thunderbird, you'll also be prompted for an Outgoing Mail Server... fill in mail.astro.princeton.edu.
7. Continue
8. Incoming User Name should already be set with your Peyton Hall username, if not fill it in. Continue
9. Pick a descriptive Account Name... the default should be ok too. Continue
10. Click Done... however, you are not done yet!
11. Click Server Settings under the account name you just created
12. Under the Security Settings section, select SSL
13. On the right side of the box, click Outgoing Server (SMTP)
14. Two options:
    • If you already filled in an outgoing server, select mail.astro and click Edit
    • Otherwise, click Add. Enter mail.astro.princeton.edu into Server Name
15. Make sure Use name and password is checked and that your astro username is filled in
16. Under Use secure connection select TLS. Click OK
17. Click OK again

That's it, you should now have a functional Thunderbird setup. You might want to look at the other options in the Account Settings box as well, as there's a lot of things you can adjust to suit your needs.