How to Set Up Your Email in Mozilla Thunderbird Print

Who this is for

This guide covers adding your Linuxweb email account to Mozilla Thunderbird on Windows, Mac, or Linux. Thunderbird is a free, open source mail program and a capable alternative to Outlook, and recent versions all follow the same setup flow.

We recommend IMAP rather than POP3. IMAP keeps your mail synchronised across all your devices, and it is what the steps below assume. Every port and setting used here also lives in our email settings and ports quick reference.

What you'll need before you start

• Your email address, for example you@yourdomain.tld.
• Your mailbox password. This is the password set when the mailbox was created in cPanel, it is not your cPanel or client area password. If it is lost, reset it in cPanel under Email Accounts, or see our article on changing your mailbox password from webmail.
• Your mail server name: mail.yourdomain.tld, replacing yourdomain.tld with your own domain.

Step-by-step setup

1. Open the account setup screen. On a fresh install, Thunderbird opens it automatically. Otherwise go to the menu, then Account Settings, then Account Actions in the bottom left, and choose Add Mail Account.
2. Enter your details: your name as you want recipients to see it, your full email address, and your mailbox password. Click Continue.
3. Let Thunderbird look up the settings. It will probe for the correct configuration and usually finds the server on its own. When it presents the result, make sure IMAP is selected, not POP3.
4. Check the detected settings before accepting. Click Configure manually to view them. They should read: incoming IMAP, server mail.yourdomain.tld, port 993, SSL/TLS, authentication Normal password. Outgoing SMTP, server mail.yourdomain.tld, port 587, STARTTLS, authentication Normal password. Username on both sides is your full email address.
5. Correct anything that differs, click Re-test if you changed values, then click Done.
6. Finish. Thunderbird connects and your folders begin syncing. A mailbox with years of history takes a while on the first pass, let it run.

Common problems

• Thunderbird's automatic lookup picks the wrong servers or ports. Click Configure manually and enter the values from step 4 yourself, then Re-test. Automatic detection is a convenience, the manual values are the truth.
• A certificate warning or "Add Security Exception" dialog appears. Don't add the exception reflexively, the usual cause is a server name typed differently from mail.yourdomain.tld. See our article on SSL certificate warnings when setting up email for the causes and the safe fix.
• Thunderbird keeps prompting for the password. Prove the password by logging in to webmail at yourdomain.tld/webmail. If webmail accepts it, confirm the username in Thunderbird is the full email address, and re-enter the password when prompted rather than cancelling, cancelled prompts repeat.
• Mail arrives but won't send. Check the outgoing server: menu, Account Settings, Outgoing Server (SMTP) at the bottom of the left column, select the entry and Edit, and confirm port 587, STARTTLS, Normal password, and your full email address as username. The background is in our article on the 554 relay access denied error.
• A folder you use is missing. Thunderbird only displays subscribed folders. Right-click your email address in the folder list, choose Subscribe, and tick the missing folders. More on this in our article on webmail and your mail program showing different emails.

Good to know

Thunderbird stores its settings and local mail copies in a profile folder, which makes it unusually easy to move between computers, and because the account is IMAP, even skipping that entirely costs nothing: set the account up fresh on the new machine and your mail syncs straight back down from the server. Webmail at yourdomain.tld/webmail remains the quickest way to confirm the mailbox itself is healthy whenever Thunderbird misbehaves.