Using Gmail IMAP With Mozilla Thunderbird
If your like me and use multiple computers, you may find that using IMAP for your email is a huge benefit in keeping organized and synced across multiple systems. This is great for anyone that uses a desktop computer at work, laptop at home, and/or a phone on the road.
Everything you do within your IMAP email is reflected on all systems you use. If you delete an email, it's deleted from your desktop, your laptop, your phone, etc. If you organize your email on one computer, it's organized on every computer you use. Pretty nifty huh?
I've always been a big fan of Gmail. I used it as my primary email system so that I always have a back up of my email in case my computer crashes, which has come in handy on more than one occasion. I have my business email addresses forward to my Gmail account so I can access all of my email accounts directly from Gmail.
Originally, I was using Outlook 2007 with POP3 to download my messages from Gmail to my computer keeping copies of my email on Gmail's servers. This was great when I was only using one computer for email, but now that I'm accessing my email from multiple computers I needed a way for them to all be synced. This is where Gmail's IMAP came in handy.
Making the switch to using IMAP was pretty easy, with one slight problem. Outlook 2007 and Gmail IMAP don't work well together. After I set up IMAP within Outlook, it became so sluggish it wasn't worth using.
I got frustrated with the program not responding, taking forever to load messages, and overall bad performance. Browsing my folders took much longer than necessary. Even trying to send an email could take up to 5 minutes before it would allow me to even open the new email. This wasn't going to work for me.
I read articles on how to speed up Outlook with Gmail's IMAP and was unsuccessful at finding a solution that actually worked. While the methods I found did speed up Outlook slightly, it was still very sluggish and time consuming.
During my research I came across a comment that a user posted in response to the problem that Outlook had with Google IMAP. The user mentioned that they had the same problem and switched to Mozilla Thunderbird and haven't had any problems since the switch.
Since I hadn't found a better solution, I decided to give Mozilla Thunderbird a try.
After installing and setting up Mozilla Thunderbird, I was more than happy with the results. I can browse my emails with the same speed I would if I were using POP3. I'm able to add folders, create filters for my mail as well as sync up my Google Calendar. Now we're talking!
Now, I can access my email from any computer and have everything organized and up to date. No need to keep two separate systems organized having to repeat processes on both machines. IMAP does it all for me.
Setting everything up was very simple and didn't take much time to set up.
Here's what you need to do:
- First, you need to download the latest version of Thunderbird: http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird
- While your downloading Thunderbird, go to your Gmail account and make sure that IMAP is enabled.
- Now, install and set up Thunderbird. The set up is actually a breeze. You just put your email address and password in the set up screen, and it does everything else for you!
Mozilla Thunderbird doesn't come with a calendar system natively, but with a light weight plug-in you can add calendar functionality just like you would have within Outlook.
Adding a Calen
If you want to add a calendar system to Thunderbird and have the ability to sync with Google calendar, you'll need to download and install Lightning and the Provider for Google Calendar plug-ins. These plug-ins add a calendar system to Thunderbird and allow you to sync back and forth with Google Calendar.
Here are the links for these plug ins. The install instructions for the plug ins are on the download pages. You can search for them within the plug ins section of Thunderbird Lightning for Thunderbird Provider for Google Calendar.
Once you have these installed, you'll need to access your Google Calendar.
Here is a very simple tutorial on how to do this. Once this is set up, your ready to go! https://wiki.mozilla.org/Calendar:GDATA_Provider#Accessing_your_Calendar
Now, you can set yourself up with IMAP and have a system that's reliable and easy to use! I hope you enjoyed this article. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact me.
As a web design and development company, using Thunderbird in this fashion has helped us keep on top of our leads and contacts with multiple computers!
John Paul Rawlins of Studio Interactive Website Design and Development is a man of many talents. He's worked as a graphic and web designer, a writer, an editor, a web marketing specialist, an entrepreneur, and even a musician - all before the age of thirty. He's traveled the United States, living coast-to-coast and developing a client base from the Horse Capital of the World to the City of Angels. Thanks to his impressive portfolio of work, his natural ability to network and his numerous sites and side projects, he's made a name for himself in the global design industry. Visit his website for web design and development.
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