Email: Setup UTK Microsoft 365 or Gmail Account in Thunderbird

Overview

This article provides instructions for setting up a UTK Microsoft 365 or Gmail account in Thunderbird.

Instructions

Installing Thunderbird

1. Go to https://www.thunderbird.net/. 
2. Click Free Download in the middle of the page. The correct version of Thunderbird for your system should automatically start downloading. 
3. Once downloaded, open the installer and follow the instructions on the screen to complete the process.

Setting Up a UTK Account in Thunderbird

1. Upon opening Thunderbird for the first time, the following screen should appear:
   
   If you like, you can close the tab "Thunderbird Privacy Notice" at the top edge of the window, as well as the message at the bottom of the window about free and open-source software.
2. To add your UTK Microsoft 365 account to Thunderbird, start by entering your name in the "Full Name" field.
   NOTE: If you use Thunderbird to send any messages, the name you enter here WILL BE shown to the recipient(s), like so:
   "From: Your Name As Entered <example@vols.utk.edu>"
3. Enter the correct UTK email address in the Email Address field to make sure you are signed in to your Microsoft 365 email account.
   Please refer to the following table to determine which email address you should enter:

   	Student	Employee
   Email	YourNetID@vols.utk.edu	YourNetID@utk.edu

4. Enter your NetID password in the Password field.
   Your screen should now look like this:
   
5. Once you have verified that your information has been entered correctly, click the blue Continue button. Thunderbird will now scan your account and try to configure it automatically. This may take a moment.
6. Once Thunderbird has identified the configuration, you should see the following: 
   
7. Click Configure Manually. Do NOT click the blue "Done" button yet because some minor corrections need to be made to the automatic configuration.
   The following screen will appear:
   
8. In the Incoming Server section, click the dropdown menu that says Normal password and change it to OAuth2. Do the same for the Outgoing Server section.
9. The correct Hostname must also be entered for the Incoming Server and Outgoing Server. 
   Please refer to the following table to determine which Hostname you should enter for the Incoming Server:

   Email Provider	Hostname
   Microsoft 365/Outlook	outlook.office365.com
   Google/Gmail	imap.gmail.com

   Please refer to the following table to determine which Hostname you should enter for the Outgoing Server: 

   Email Provider	Hostname
   Microsoft 365/Outlook	smtp.office365.com
   Google/Gmail	smtp.gmail.com

10. Check to make sure the Port numbers are correct. 

    Email Provider	Incoming Server	Outgoing Server
    Microsoft 365/Outlook	993	587
    Google/Gmail	993	465

    Thunderbird should now look like this for Outlook:
    
    
    Thunderbird should now look like this for Gmail: 
    
    
     
11. Click the blue Done button. The following pop-up window should appear:
    
     
12. Click Next, then enter your NetID password and click Sign In.
13. You will then see a prompt from Microsoft asking if you want to grant access to your Microsoft account to Thunderbird. Click the blue Accept button. You may also be prompted to complete two-factor authentication via Duo after clicking Accept.
    
14. This should complete the process of signing in to your UTK Microsoft 365 email account. If the process was successful, you should see this screen:
    
15. You might also receive a message that the configuration could not be verified, like this one:
    
    If this happens, simply click the blue Done button a second time to resolve the issue. You should then see the success page from the previous step.
16. Click Finish to complete the account setup.
    NOTE: By default, Thunderbird sorts messages by when they were received, with the newest messages at the *bottom* of the list. To put newer messages at the top instead, click the Date column's header to flip the sort direction.

Adding Another Account 

If you have already added an account to Thunderbird, you can access the account setup wizard again to add an additional account.

1. Click the Settings Gear Icon in the lower-left corner. 
2. Click Account Settings in the lower-left corner. 
3. Click Account Actions, then click Add Mail Account...
4. You will follow the same steps listed above for Setting Up a UTK Account in Thunderbird or you can add a personal email account. 

Copying Emails Between Accounts

You can use Thunderbird to copy your emails from Gmail to Microsoft 365, or vice versa.

NOTE: Before following the instructions in this section, ensure you have already added both accounts to which you will copy messages between Thunderbird. If you have not, please refer to the section above for Setting Up a UTK Account in Thunderbird. 

Tips for Success: 

• To help prevent confusion, you may want to set a name for your accounts. You can do this from Thunderbird's Account Settings. 
• Avoid copying very large numbers of messages at once, if possible.
• Do a small test transfer with several messages to ensure things are working as expected.
• If you have custom mailboxes/folders, create new mailboxes in the destination account ahead of time to ensure they get set up correctly. 
• Copying messages may take a long time. If your computer goes to sleep or restarts in the middle of this, it may cause problems with your messages. If possible, let the transfer run in the background while using your computer normally during the day or copy messages in smaller batches.

Instructions

1. Once you are ready to begin copying messages, open the appropriate mailbox in the source account using the list on the left of Thunderbird's main window. Select the first few messages in the list now, we will try to copy these as a quick test.

   • TIP: You can select lots of messages by clicking one message, holding SHIFT on your keyboard, then clicking another message without letting go of SHIFT. This will select both messages that you clicked, as well as all messages in between them.

2. To begin copying the selected messages, right-click on one of them, then hover over the "Copy to..." option, locate the mailbox that you would like to copy your messages to, and click on it in the list. Be sure to pay careful attention to which account is which! As an example, see the following screenshot:
   

3. Thunderbird will begin to copy the messages you specified. You can check the transfer status from Thunderbird's status bar, along the window's bottom edge. While the transfer is in progress, it will say something like: "Copying message 1 of 10 to Destination Folder". This message will briefly change to "Copied 10 messages to Destination Folder" once the process has been completed, then disappear.

   • TIP: Didn't catch the message that your copy was completed before it disappeared? Double-click on the status bar to open Thunderbird's Activity Manager, which shows records of previous activity. You can also get to it via the Tools submenu of the main menu (button with 3 horizontal lines in the upper right).

4. Once the process has finished, open the destination folder to which you just copied the messages and verify that they all appear and load correctly. If everything looks good, you can switch back to the source account and copy over more messages following the same process.

5. After you have copied over all the messages that you want (from all of your mailboxes), double check and make sure that everything looks correct in the destination account. Don't forget to check folders like Sent, Drafts, and Junk!