Email in Thunderbird on Windows, Mac and Linux

What you'll achieve

• add your email address to Thunderbird, with the correct incoming and outgoing settings;
• check that you can receive and send;
• know what to do when Thunderbird can't find the server or doesn't accept the password.

Before you start

• The address must already exist and you need to know its password (see How to create an email account in Enhance). The password is the email address's password, not your Enhance one.
• Thunderbird tries to guess the server settings, but they usually have to be filled in by hand. Keep them at hand (in the example, the domain is firmata.ro). You can also find them in Enhance, under “Emails” » “Manage” next to the address » “Email client settings”.

• Username: the full address, for example office@firmata.ro, for both incoming and outgoing mail.
• The server: mail.firmata.ro works if your domain points to our server (the nameservers ns1 / ns2.nbt-host.ro). Otherwise, or if you're not sure, enter server.nbt-host.com: it has a valid certificate on all the ports above.
• Below, the names are the ones used in Thunderbird in English. If your Thunderbird is in another language, the fields are in the same order.

The steps

1. Open Thunderbird. If it's the first launch, the new account screen opens directly. Otherwise, open the ≡ menu (top right) » “New” » “Existing Email Account…”.
2. Fill in:
   • “Your full name”: the name recipients see, yours or your company's;
   • “Email address”: the full address;
   • “Password”: the email address's password;
   • leave “Remember password” checked, so Thunderbird doesn't ask for it every time it starts.
3. Click “Configure manually”. If Thunderbird manages to look up the settings on its own and shows you what it found, still choose manual configuration and check every field.
4. Under “Incoming Server”:
   • “Protocol”: IMAP;
   • “Hostname”: mail.firmata.ro or server.nbt-host.com;
   • “Port”: 993;
   • “Connection security”: SSL/TLS;
   • “Authentication method”: “Normal password”;
   • “Username”: the full address.
5. Under “Outgoing Server” (SMTP):
   • “Hostname”: the same server as for incoming mail;
   • “Port”: 465;
   • “Connection security”: SSL/TLS;
   • “Authentication method”: “Normal password”;
   • “Username”: the full address.
6. Click “Re-test”. Thunderbird checks the details; if everything is fine, it says it found the settings.
7. Click “Done”. The account appears on the left, and the server folders (Inbox, Sent, Drafts, Spam, Trash) load within a few minutes.
8. Send yourself a test message from another address and reply to it from Thunderbird.

Folders for sent messages and drafts

So that messages sent from Thunderbird also appear in Webmail and on your phone, save them in the server folders:

1. The ≡ menu » “Account Settings”.
2. Under your address, open “Copies & Folders”.
3. Under “Place a copy in”, choose “Other” and the Sent folder of your account with us. For drafts, the Drafts folder.

If something doesn't work

• “Thunderbird failed to find the settings for your email account”, or it can't find the server. This is normal: choose manual configuration and fill in the servers from the table.
• “Login to server … failed”, or Thunderbird keeps asking for the password. The username must be the full address, and the password must be the email address's password. Try the same details in Webmail (see Webmail: how to read your email in the browser): if they don't work there either, set a new password for the address in Enhance.
• Certificate security warning (“Add Security Exception”). Don't accept the exception: the server name has no certificate, usually because you entered mail.firmata.ro but the domain doesn't point to us yet. Change the server to server.nbt-host.com, for both incoming and outgoing mail.
• You receive mail but can't send. Check the outgoing server: port 465, SSL/TLS, “Normal password” and the username filled in. If the network blocks port 465, use 587 with STARTTLS. Sent a lot within an hour? The limit is 200 emails per hour from each address.
• Messages marked as spam don't appear in the Inbox. On the server, they go to the Spam folder. Subscribe to it in Thunderbird: right-click the account » “Subscribe…” (see also Spam filters and the Spam folder).