Set up GreenNet account in Thunderbird

Setting up Thunderbird is easy if you have the right information. Mozilla Thunderbird gives you flexible control over how you manage email. You can have multiple mail accounts and identities. This article helps you with account and identities management. Also see Turn Thunderbird into the Ultimate GreenNet IMAP Client for further instructions on how to customise IMAP.

ISSUE:

How do I set up Mozilla Thunderbird to check and send email?

OR

I just changed Internet Service Providers and now need to change Thunderbird to check and send from my new GreenNet mailbox. How do I change my settings?

SOLUTION:

You will need to look through the letter we sent you for your username and password, but the rest of the information is provided below. Once you have it, you are ready to set up Thunderbird. If you don’t already have it installed, you can download Thunderbird here

Settings

Before setting up your account, you should know the following information:

• POP or incoming mail server: pop.gn.apc.org

• SMTP or outgoing mail server: smtp.gn.apc.org

• Incoming server type: IMAP or POP (if IMAP see this page)

• Log-in name for mail servers: <username>

• E-mail address: <your name>@yourdomain.org.uk

• Security: SMTP authentication strongly recommended, prefer STARTTLS encryption

If you do not know your username or password, you can either find it in the documentation we sent when you started your GreenNet membership.

If you have questions about any of these settings (i.e.: difference between IMAP and POP – or the benefits of each) call us on 0845 055 4011 and we’ll be glad to talk you through it.

Creating a Mail Account in Thunderbird 3.0

1. Go to the Tools menu and choose Account Settings.

2. From the “Account Actions” drop-down menu (at the bottom left of the Account Setting window) choose “Add Mail Account…”

3. Enter your name and email address as you want recipients to see it. It’s not essential to enter your password at this stage.

4. Click continue. This gives you the “Mail Account Setup” box.

5. Thunderbird will attempt to guess the settings, but if your email address is not @gn.apc.org, it may get them wrong. You can click “stop” to stop this process.

6. In the username box, enter the username as supplied. (If you have an address @gn.apc.org, it will be the part before the ‘@‘ sign. Otherwise see the information we supplied.)

7. Choose between IMAP and POP. See the link above for the differences: basically POP is good for intermittent connections and downloads all email straight to your computer; whereas IMAP leaves it on the server and may be more useful if you regularly use multiple computers and webmail.

8. To the right of “incoming server”, if the box doesn’t already contain “pop.gn.apc.org”, delete any text there and enter “pop.gn.apc.org” or “imap.gn.apc.org” if you want IMAP. Similarly, in the “outgoing” box below, enter “smtp.gn.apc.org”.

9. Click the “re-test configuration” button. Two green blobs should should indicate the names of the servers have been typed correctly.

10. Click “Manual Setup…” (or “OK”)

11. Close the Account settings by clicking “OK”.

11. Click “Manual Setup…”

Creating a Mail Account in Thunderbird 2.0 and older

To set up an e-mail account, open the Tools menu and choose Account Settings. Press Add Account. The Account Wizard should open:

1. Choose Email account and press Next.

2. Enter your name and e-mail address. Press Next.

3. Select the type of your incoming server. This is usually POP but your GreenNet mailbox supports IMAP as standard as well. Enter your server address (pop.gn.apc.org).

If your incoming server is POP, you may tick Use Global Inbox. If you do not tick this option, your mail account will have its own folder directory, including its own Inbox, Trash, Draft, etc. Many people with multiple POP mail account prefer to use Global Inbox, where all POP mail is stored and managed in one folder directory. But the choice is yours.

If this is your first account setup, you need to enter your outgoing server (smtp.gn.apc.org). Otherwise, you need to set up additional outgoing servers separately.

Press Next.

4. Enter your username for receiving mail. This is GreenNet mailbox name, and not your alias name. You may also need to enter your username for sending mail (the same as the username for receiving mail).

Press Next.

5. Enter the account name (display name in Thunderbird). Press Next.

6. The Wizard should show you a summary of your account information. You may also have an option to immediately download mail.

Note: if you are setting up your first mail account from the wizard that opens on start up (rather than from the Account Settings dialog), Thunderbird automatically downloads messages regardless of this option. This is because Thunderbird checks for new messages on startup by default.

Review the summary and press Finish to complete the process.