Mozilla Thunderbird Client

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Introduction

Mozilla Thunderbird is an E-mail client which includes an E-mail client and a web browser. In order to browse the Internet, you may use Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox. This tutorial details the basics of installing and using Thunderbird. If you require more details or up to date technical support information go to Mozilla's Website.

Thunderbird runs on your local PC and connects to the mail.ryerson.ca (Ryerson E-mail) server to send and read mail. Thunderbird uses the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) to manage your messages and folders on the E-mail server. Thunderbird can use another protocol called POP3, but unless you always use the same PC to read your E-mail and backup your own mail files regularly, POP3 is not as useful. The POP3 protocol downloads all your messages to your local PC and deletes them from the E-mail server.

Video Tutorials

CCS offers free video tutorials as alternatives to the text based instructions on the User's Guide. To view the video tutorials for Mozilla Thunderbird, visit the links below (links open in a new window).

• Part One - Start-up & Signing In (2:17)
• Part Two - User Interface (3:27)
• Part Three - Composing a Message (3:57)

Downloading & Installing Thunderbird

CCS recommends using at least version 1.0.2 of Thunderbird. To check which version you are running, Click Help > About Mozilla Thunderbird. The latest version of Thunderbird is 3.1.

You may already have Thunderbird installed on your PC; if so, you will only need to set up your E-mail preferences to access your files on the RMail server. If you need a newer version of Thunderbird than what you currently have, or don’t have Thunderbird installed on your PC, you can obtain a copy of the software online at http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird. 

Please see the Setting up E-Mail Clients topic of this guide, specifically the Configuring Mozilla Thunderbird section, for steps on how to access your RMail using Thunderbird.

Starting Thunderbird

Open up Mozilla Thunderbird. When you start Thunderbird, the Mail Server Password Required box (as seen below) prompts you for your E-mail password. Type your Password, which appears as asterisks, and click OK.

Fig. 1 - Thunderbird Requires a Password

If you are using Thunderbird for the first time you will have to create your account which syncs with your email on the Ryerson network. The first window you will see will require you to add your Name, Email Address and Password. Your name doesn't have to correspond with any previous settings, but you must be sure that your Email address and password are correct to what you login with on Webmail.

Fig. 2 - Mail Account Set Up Screen

If your information is correct, Thunderbird will attempt to auto-connect with default settings. This should connect without issue on the Ryerson network. If you have different server settings, you will have to select Manual Setup... in the bottom left corner of Fig. 2.

Fig. 3 - Thunderbird Auto-Connection

If this your first time using Thunderbird you may have to accept the mail certificate. Select “Accept this certificate permanently” and click OK. (Fig. 4)

Fig. 4 - Website Security Certificate

Understanding the Thunderbird Interface

For E-mail management, Thunderbird divides the screen into three sections: the Folder panel, the Message List panel, and the Message Content panel. Thunderbird provides a menu bar with a listing of commands and a tool bar for quick access to E-mail functions. 

Fig. 5 - Thunderbird Interface

Menu Bar Toolbar Folder Panel Message List Panel Message Content Panel Message Body
Message Attachments

Folder Panel

The Folder panel allows you to view and work with your mailbox. Folders such as the Inbox, Sent folder and any other folders you create are listed here. Click on a folder to display the messages of the folder in the Message List panel.

Message List Panel

The Message List panel displays the messages of the folder you selected in the Folder Panel. On startup, you Inbox messages are displayed here. Click on a heading, such as the Subject, Sender or Date above the Message List panel, to sort your messages. The picture below indicates headings you can click to sort your E-mail messages.

Fig. 6 - The Message List Panel Header

Message Threading

Message Threading allows you to see an entire Email conversation in the Message List Panel. All Replies back and forth will be nested based on which messages were replied to. With this option turned off, all messages are displayed independently in the panel.

Sort by Star

Selecting this option will place Starred messages in your mailbox at the top of the list in the Message List Panel. Starred items are selected by the user as important messages.

Sort by Attachment

Selecting this option will place messages with attachments at the top of the mailbox. Attachments are external files that have been sent along with an Email message.

Sort by Subject

This will organize Email messages in your mailbox alphabetically by Subject title.

Sort by Read/Unread

Selecting this option will place unread messages at the top of the list, with unread below them. This is not in chronological order and will include old messages that you may have not read.

Sort by Sender

This option will alphabetize messages by Sender name.

Sort by Junk

When selected this option sorts potential Junk mail at the top of the message list.

Sort by Date

This option sorts messages in chronological order from either oldest-to-newest, or newest-to-oldest.

Message Content Panel

The Message Content panel displays the contents of the highlighted message. On startup, you can set this to open to the CCS Startup page http://www.ryerson.ca/ccs/. This web page displays current system status messages and other Ryerson information such as News messages provide by the Ryerson community. You can click Tools > Options > General tab > Thunderbird Start Page > select When Thunderbird launches, show the start page in the message area. Enter the URL in the textbox beside the Location field as the Start Page for E-mail.

Thunderbird Toolbar

The toolbar provides buttons for quick access to different functions and features available in the Thunderbird E-mail client. The table below describes the purpose of the icons:

Composing an Email Message

Click the Write in the Toolbar to create an E-mail. All E-mail messages are made up of three parts: the Header, the Subject, and the Message Text. The image below shows the message composition window for Thunderbird.

Fig. 7 - Compose Message Window

Header

This is the area where you specify the recipients of your E-mail.

To send a message within Ryerson, type the recipient's user name in the To: field and press Enter. If the E-mail address of the recipient finishes with @ryerson.ca, you only need to enter their user name; otherwise, you will need the full E-mail address for other Ryerson addresses, i.e. enter jdoe for jdoe@ryerson.ca, and enter jdoe@mba.ryerson.ca for jdoe@mba.ryerson.ca. Remember, you cannot assume what someone’s E-mail address since numbers are sometimes added to the user names of common last names.

To communicate with others outside Ryerson, you must know their full E-mail address. Think of it as a house address. The post office needs a name, street number, city, province and a postal code to deliver mail. The computer address consists of the user’s name and their mail server’s name and location. The general syntax is:

The user’s name is generally their user ID, for example jsmith. An example of a full E-mail address would be jsmith@ryerson.ca. E-mail addresses can end with a country code, such as .ca for Canada, as described in the general syntax above, but it can also have other endings such as .com for businesses and .edu for educational institutions in the United States. If you want to send an E-mail to an account outside of Ryerson and you are unsure of their E-mail address, you can have the other person send you an E-mail first; their E-mail address will be in the from field of your received message. 

Remember, your RMail address is your my.ryerson_user_name@ryerson.ca, where my.ryerson_user_name is your RMail user name. 

If you would like to use your address book to browse for E-mail addresses, click the Contacts icon in the Toolbar in the Compose window.

Subject

From the Header, use the mouse or press Tab to move to the Subject field. The subject line is the first thing the receiver sees when your message arrives in their Inbox. Write a brief description of what the E-mail message is about in this section.

Message Text

Use the mouse or press Tab to move to the message text area from the Subject box. Compose your full message in this area with one of the text editors Thunderbird provides. Thunderbird automatically detects whether your recipient can receive HTML or plain text messages. If you want to make that decision yourself, click Tools > Format and select your format of choice.

**Note: All E-mail messages can be composed using the HTML editor.

You can specify the hosts or sites that should receive your message as plain text. Click Tools > Options > Composition tab > Send Options button > Plain Text Domains tab > Add; a pop-up window will appear. Enter the domain names of servers you know cannot read HTML formatted messages, click OK until you return to the window you were viewing.

Adding Attachments

You can attach a file from your local hard disk to an E-mail. The file included with the E-mail can be any filetype as long as it meets file size requirements which are defined by the host of your Email. To attach a file using Thunderbird, click Attach in the Toolbar of the compose window.

The Attach Files dialog box will pop up, allowing you to find and select files on your local computer to attach to the E-mail. Click Open to attach the file to the E-mail. Additional files can be attached individually by repeating the previous steps. If you wish to attach multiple files simultaneously, press the Ctrl key and select each file using the mouse. 

You will see the name of the attached file listed in a box titled Attachments to the right of the header in the compose window. When you send your E-mail, a copy of the file will be forwarded with your message.

Fig. 8 - An Attached File

If you would like to remove any of the attached files from the E-mail, simply click the file in the Attachments box next to the header to select the file, and press Delete. 

**Note: The RMail server will not currently accept attachments larger than 5 MB because of file space limitations.

Sending an Email Message

When you create a message in the Compose window, there are icons at the top of the window for easy access. The icons include:

When you finish composing your message, you may want to check your spelling. Click the Spell icon. This icon will activate the Spell Check software within Thunderbird to scan for spelling mistakes in your E-mail message text. 

To send your message, click the Send icon or click File > Send Now. If you are not ready to send your E-mail, you may store your E-mail by clicking File > Send Later in the compose window. Thunderbird stores the E-mail as Local Mail in a Drafts folder which can be found in the Folder panel. 

Thunderbird does not immediately tell you if you have used an invalid RMail address when you type an address in the To field. Instead, when you attempt to send the message an error message pops up. In the example below, jsmith is incorrectly spelt.

Fig. 9 - Invalid Email Address Error

Mail incorrectly addressed to someone outside of Ryerson is initially sent and is later returned (“bounced”) to your Inbox with a header explaining why the server rejected the message.

**Note: Unlike accessing RMail using a web browser, you cannot simply type an RMail user name in the To field of Thunderbird to send an E-mail to another RMail account. You must type the full E-mail address, including the @ryerson.ca suffix; otherwise you will receive an error.

Fig. 10 - Invalid form for Email address

Reading Your Email

To check for new E-mail, simply click the Get Mail icon in the Toolbar of the Thunderbird main window. 

In the Inbox folder, all new unread messages are indicated by bolded font and a green dot (•) under the (read/unread) column in the Message List panel. If you want to sort your Inbox by read/unread messages, simply click the Glasses icon in the menu bar.. To view a message, click anywhere on the item in the Message List panel and the contents of the selected message will be displayed in the Message Body area below.

From this window, use the Toolbar buttons to Reply to the sender, Reply to all recipients, Forward the E-mail to another person, Print the current E-mail, Tag a category onto an E-mail, set an E-mail as Junk or Delete the selected message. 

Right clicking, either in the panel displaying your message or on the message list window, displays further options for your message. From here, you will have the same options as provided by the toolbar buttons as well as the additional options to Tag, Move Again, Move to, Copy to, Save as, Delete Message or Mark the message. 

**Note: You also have the ability to drag and drop messages into existing folders. Click on the E-mail you wish to move in the Message list, and while holding down the mouse button, drag the cursor to a folder. The message has now been moved from the Inbox to the folder of your choice. 

You can archive your messages by moving them to another folder on the RMail server, or to your Local Mail folder in Thunderbird, which is stored on your PC.

Automatically Check for New Mail

You can specify your Thunderbird preferences to periodically check for new E-mail messages.

1. Click Tools> Account Settings > Server Settings.
2. Place a check mark beside Check for new messages every and enter a time interval for Thunderbird to get new E-mail for you. Do not choose a time of less than 10 minutes. This will provide you with ample refreshes and help the mail server from overloading with requests.
   
   
   Fig. 11 - Server Settings
3. Click OK to save your changes.

Saving And Viewing Attached Files

If someone sends you an E-mail with an attached file, you can either view the file or save it. Thunderbird displays attachments either "inline" (default) or "as links". Attachments such as plain text, HTML or graphics files (GIF or JPG) display inline within the body of the message. Attachments requiring additional software for viewing, such as binary files created by word processors, spreadsheet software or compilers display as links in the header of the message.

Fig. 12 - An Email Message with a File Attachment

Inline attachments are displayed in the Message Content panel after the Message Text. These attachments, whether inline or displayed as links, can be downloaded by double clicking on the icon in the section below the Message Content panel click Save As in the Opening window - or – choose Open in the Opening window if you wish to open the file to view the contents if the appropriate software is available on your work station. Make your selection then click OK.

**Note: Do not open attached files if you are unsure of the contents of the file or the sender. Never open an attachment unless you are expecting a file from the sender. This will avoid infecting your computer with a virus. Always save the file to disk, run a virus scan on the attachment, and then open the file.

Quota Check

To check your quota, right click on the folder marked Inbox and select Properties.

A window will display, select the Quota tab.

Fig. 13 - Checking Quota Status

Printing to a Local Printer

To print an E-mail message from your Inbox or any other folder, click File > Print or click the Print icon in the Toolbar to send the current message you are viewing to a local printer.

Organizing Your Email Using Folders

All messages are kept in folders. The Inbox and Mail Sent folders are created by default and the Inbox folder houses all messages sent to you. You may delete unwanted E-mail in the Inbox or save messages to another folder. You can also organize your correspondence by creating several smaller subject-specific folders in the Folder list.

If you want to create a new folder in the Folder list which is not part of another folder in the list, select your home directory, then click File > New > Folder…. If you want to create a new folder which is a subfolder of an existing folder, select the existing folder in the Folder list, then click File > New > Subfolder…. In both cases, a New Folder window will appear which allows you to name your new folder/subfolder and choose where you want to place it, in your actual RMail account or in you Local folders.

Fig. 14 - Organizing Folders

If you choose to create the folder on mail.ryerson.ca, you can access the folder from any location on Thunderbird or through Webmail. Otherwise, if you choose to create the folder on your own hard disk by selecting the Local Folders option in the drop down menu, you will only be able to access the folder in Thunderbird and only if you use the same computer each time. 

Once the new folder is created it will automatically appear in the Folder list in the Folder panel and you can now move messages into the new folder. One way to do this is to right click on the message to be moved, and then select Move To. A list of your current folders will be displayed for you to select which one to move the message into. Another method is to click and drag the messages with the mouse and drop them by releasing the left mouse button over the destination folder. 

If you wish to remove unwanted E-mail messages, highlight the messages in the Message list and press Delete. This will mark the messages for deletion. The file is not removed until the Trash is expunged. To permanently remove deleted messages manually, click File > Empty Trash, or if you are not using a Trash folder, click File > Compact Folders.

Address Book

The Address Book lets you keep a list of E-mail addresses that you use frequently. You can add addresses while reading an E-mail message or by manually adding entries directly into the Address Book. To open the Address Book, click the Address Book icon in the Toolbar.

Address Book Layout

Similar to many screens and windows in the Thunderbird, the Address Book also has Toolbar icons, panels and folders to help you organize and navigate through your contacts. The following table will explain the purposes of the icons in the Toolbar.

When the Address Book is opened, all the contacts in your Personal Address Book are listed in alphabetical order by default. The columns in the Contact List panel allow you to sort your contacts according to name, E-mail, screen name, organization, and work phone number, in ascending or descending order. If you would like to have different columns displayed in this panel, click the drop down icon on the right to display a list of available options.

Fig. 15 - Contact List in the Address Book

Add An Address

While you are reading an E-mail, you have the option of saving the E-mail addresses of your received message, or another option is to manually add contacts directly into the Address book. To save an address from a received E-mail, click on the link in the header which displays the contact’s E-mail address. A menu will appear beside the pointer of the mouse, select Add to Address Book.

Fig. 16 - Add to Address Book

A New Card entry form window will be displayed. Complete the fields you require then click OK to save and add the entry to your Address Book.

Fig. 17 - Editing Contact Information

If you wish to create a new entry direction in the Address Book, click New Card in the Toolbar of the Address Book and the New Card window will appear. Similarly, you can create a new group of contacts by clicking the New List icon in the Toolbar.

Delete An Address

To delete a contact, perform the following steps:

• Click the Address Book icon in the Toolbar of the Thunderbird window
• In the Contact List panel, select the contact you wish to delete.
• Click in the Toolbar - or - left click and select Delete.

Updating An Address Book Entry

Each contact in the Address Book can be updated individually which is a useful to customize personal information. 

To update an individual contact:

• Click Address Book in the Toolbar of the Thunderbird window
• In the Contact List panel, select the contact you wish to update
• Click Properties in the Toolbar and an Edit Card window will appear

In the Edit Card window (Fig. 20), there are three tabs - Contact, Address and Other – which allow you to edit information about a contact.

When you have finished updating the contact’s information, click OK at the bottom of the window.

Using Address Book Entries

Many times when you are composing an E-mail, you may want to use the Address Book to look up the E-mail address of the recipients. In the Message Composition window, go to the Menu Bar and select View > Contact Sidebar. Now the Contact Sidebar will appear on the left side of the window (Fig. 21). Select the contact you want to use in your E-mail message then click Add to To: button to place the contact’s E-mail address in the To field of the E-mail header. If you set up nicknames for the entries in your directory, type the nickname in the To field of the E-mail and Thunderbird will enter the address associated with the nickname you entered. For example, if you want to use the address book entry shown in the previous Edit Card image above, you can type John in the To field and the E-mail is sent to jsmith@ryerson.ca. To use a mailing list you created in your Address Book, enter the group name. This distributes the E-mail to all members in the list.

Fig. 18 - Add a Contact to a Message

If you do not need to look into the Address Book and already know the recipient’s name or E-mail, begin by typing it in the To field and Thunderbird will look through your Address Book and suggest the most matching contact by completing the remainder of the contact’s information, highlighted in blue. If the suggested contact is indeed the contact you are looking for, press Enter and the contact will be added to the recipient list. Otherwise, continue typing the name or E-mail and Thunderbird will provide other suggestions. If Thunderbird cannot find the E-mail address of the contact you are looking for, it means the E-mail address of the contact is not in your Address Book and you will need to type the E-mail yourself.

Creating a Signature File

A signature file is a file that is automatically appended to the bottom of every E-mail message you send. In order to use a signature file with Thunderbird, you must first create the signature in Windows Notepad and then save the file on your Local computer. 

After you have created a signature file, you will need to setup Thunderbird to refer to the location of the signature file: click Tools > Account Settings. In the window that appears, under the Default Identity section, check Attach this signature, and then click Choose…. Using the Choose File window which appears, browse to the location of your signature file, select it, then click Open. The Choose File window will close and the path to your signature file should be shown in the textbox beside the Choose button in Account Settings. Click OK to save and exit Account Settings. Try sending a message to yourself to see how the signature looks.

A Sample Signature:

Using Filters

Thunderbird provides a useful filter option to organize your incoming e-mail or delete unwanted spam. These filters can store incoming E-mail from a selected group of people into a particular folder. Also, if you repeatedly receive unwanted E-mail from a specific E-mail address, you can have it directed to your trash folder.

To setup a filter, click Tools > Message Filters…. The Message Filters dialog box will appear where you can create, edit or delete filters. Click New… and the Filter Rules dialog box, as shown below, will appear.

Fig. 19 - Applying Filters to Incoming Mail

1. Enter a name for the filter (e.g. Homework) and mark if you want the filter or incoming messages to match any or all of the conditions you are going to specify.
2. The first drop down menu in the textbox allows you to select which part of the message the filter should check. Options include Subject, From, Date, Priority, Status, To, To or Cc, Age in Days,Size and Customize.
3. The second drop down menu allows you to select the state which include contains, doesn’t contain, is, isn’t, begins with, ends with.
4. In the textbox, type in the word(s) to match; for example, "assignment"
5. Click the More or Fewer button to include or reduce the number of conditions.
6. The next step is to define what Thunderbird is to do if the incoming messages meet the conditions you specified. In the Perform these actions section, select from Move Message to, Copy Message to, Forward Message to, Reply with Template, Mark As Read, Add Star, Set Priority to, Tag Message, Set Junk Status to, and Delete Message.

In the above example, the Homework filter will place a star beside all incoming messages with subject ‘assignment’. Please know that unlike the past, the filter a user sets should stay configured despite logging-off the computer.

Handling an Email Virus

If you have an unopened E-mail that you know contains a virus, you can delete the message without ever opening it. You can click on the E-mail message with the virus and press Delete to remove it from your Inbox. The message will be placed in your Trash folder. Click on the Trash folder and select Empty Trash to remove the message from your account.

If you have an unopened E-mail that you know contains a virus, you can delete the message without ever opening it. You can click on the E-mail message with the virus and press Delete to remove it from your Inbox. The message will be placed in your trash folder.  on the trash folder and select Empty Trash to remove the message from your account. 

To handle viruses in general, you should make sure you have the latest version of an Anti-virus software, such as McAfee VirusScan Anti-virus, which Ryerson offers to faculty, staff and students free of charge. Visit http://www.ryerson.ca/ccs/software/downloads/index.html for more details.

Thunderbird System Response

Thunderbird will display information and error messages if problems occur. Here are a few messages that you may see during your session.

SYSTEM RESPONSES

Unknown or Illegal Alias If you attempt to send an E-mail to an incorrect Ryerson user name, Thunderbird will display the following error message when you attempt to send the E-mail Fig. 20 - Attempting to Send a Message to an Invalid Address

Mailbox is over quota This message indicates that your mailbox has reached the space limit allocated for your account. You need to delete or archive any old or unwanted messages. Messages with attachments take up a lot of space, you may want to look at these first.  Also, if you cannot send an E-mail to a correct address, t his may also indicate that you are out of file space on the mail server. For instructions on how to check your disk quota on the mail server, see the Accessing E-mail Using Webmail section of this guide.

Server Disconnected… This happens if the E-mail server is busy. Please wait a few minutes and try again. If this persists, check the CCS home page at http://www.ryerson.ca/ccs/ to see if there are any system messages regarding the E-mail server.

Exiting Thunderbird

Click File > Exit to exit Thunderbird. This terminates your connection to the mail system and closes the Thunderbird window. On exit, all messages marked for deletion are be purged from your Trash folder if you selected this in your Thunderbird Account Settings.

For more information on using Thunderbird, go to Mozilla's Website.