This series is dedicated to specific e-mail providers on the internet. In this installment, the service provider concentrated on will be Google’s Gmail.

Gmail, launched in March 2004, has grown to be one of the most-used free e-mail services on the internet. While it doesn’t have a large of a userbase as Yahoo! Mail or Hotmail, it’s still a force to be reckoned with.

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In the last part of the series we concentrated on getting IMAP-enabled Gmail to work with Outlook Express. In this article we’ll concentrate on Mozilla Thunderbird.

To note: Thunderbird is available for Windows, Mac or Linux and operates exactly the same in all three. So if you like to hop between operating systems, you’ll really like Gmail and Thunderbird.

1. Launch Thunderbird, then click on Tools then Account Settings.

2. From the new window that appears, click the Add Account button.

Note the Add Account button shown at the bottom left of the image above.

3. Click Email Account and then click Next.

Note: It is true you could choose the Gmail option here, however it is better to set this up the manual way because there are IMAP specific options we need to set up later on.

4. On the next screen, enter your name, full Gmail e-mail address and click Next.

5. On the next screen, select your incoming mail server as IMAP and enter the incoming server address as imap.gmail.com, then click Next.

6. On the next screen, enter your incoming user name as your full Gmail e-mail address, then click Next.

Note: If you are prompted to also enter in an outgoing user name, also input that as your full Gmail e-mail address.

7. On the next screen, enter your account name as your full Gmail e-mail address, then click Next.

8. On the next screen, click Finish.

Your outgoing user name and outgoing server name may differ from above. This is OK, we will fix this in a moment.

9. Back at the Account Settings window, select Server Settings on the left sidebar. Nex to Port, change this to 993. Change your Security Settings to SSL. See image below for example.

10. Click the Advanced button (the button next to “Empty Trash on Exit” on the Server Settings screen). Change your IMAP server directory to [Gmail] (yes this includes the brackets), then click OK.

See image below for example.

11. On the left sidebar click Outgoing Server (SMTP) and then click the Add button on the right.

See image below for example.

Note: Your SMTP listing may be slightly different looking and you may have multiple entries. This is OK.

12. Create an entry called Gmail. Enter the server name as smtp.gmail.com and the port as 465. After that, check Use name and password. For the user name, enter your full Gmail e-mail address. Finally, click SSL at the bottom, then click OK.

See image below for example.

13. Select your Gmail e-mail account from the left sidebar. Then on the right (near the bottom), select the outgoing server as Gmail – smtp.gmail.com, then click OK.

See image below for example.

14. Click the Get Mail button at the top left of Thunderbird. You will be prompted to enter a password. Enter in your Gmail e-mail address password here.

Note: It is optional whether or not you want Thunderbird to remember the password or not. If you opt to have it not remember, you will be prompted to enter your Gmail password each time you want to check your Gmail for new messages.

15. Your Gmail will then start arriving in your inbox.

16. Click Tools then Account Settings, then select Copies and Folders on the left sidebar. In the gray area under When sending messages, automatically:, UNCHECK “Place a copy in” for your sent mail.

See image below for example.

Why are we doing this now and not before? Because we had to let Thunderbird download all the Gmail folders from the IMAP first.

Why do we not want Thunderbird to make a copy of sent mail in the Sent Mail folder? Because Gmail does this automatically already when using IMAP. If you have Thunderbird make a copy of each sent item, you’re copying it twice for no reason (once by Gmail, once by Thunderbird – so it’s not necessary to have Thunderbird make a copy itself).

17. At the top left of Thunderbird, click the Write button to compose a new e-mail and compose a message to yourself. This is to test outgoing mail.

When finished, click the Send button at top left.

18. You will be prompted to enter a password for your outgoing mail. This is your Gmail e-mail password. Enter it here and click OK.

19. After the mail is sent, in about 1 minute your e-mail should arrive.

20. When we click the Sent Mail folder, you’ll notice that yes, Gmail did in fact make a copy server-side of the mail you just sent yourself – and will do so for each mail you send.

You’re done!

In the next article – IMAP Gmail with the Windows Live Mail e-mail client!

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