Thunderbird

Installing

You will need to go to Thunderbird — Software made to make email easier. — Mozilla or preferably Thunderbird — Software made to make email easier. — Mozilla which is harder to find than you might think.

There are some useful Thunderbird related links at Useful Thunderbird Links - Thunderbird - Mozilla Discourse which are well worth checking out.

Moving to a different computer

See Mozilla Profiles for details.

Hints & Tips

It is worth learning some keyboard shortcuts, especially as your hands will be on the keyboard for typing anyway, so check out Keyboard Shortcuts TB | Thunderbird Help, which will detect your operating system and show appropriate keystrokes.

Filters

There is a nice article on message filters at Mozilla Thunderbird Filters Guide – J T Response Limited which looks good.

Encryption

It is well understood, or should be, that e-mail is not secure. However e-mail encryption is not easy! Introduction to End-to-end encryption in Thunderbird | Thunderbird Help is an explanation. However some people prefer to use other approaches, like Signal >> Home.

32/64-bit Migration

You might be running the 32-bit version of Thunderbird and want to move to the 64-bit version. I have done this but first I did some tests on Windows Sandbox to make sure I understood how it worked. My starting point was running Thunderbird 32-bit, which on Windows is installed in "C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Thunderbird" and I wanted to get to the 64-bit version, there are two options:

  • Upgrade - if you download the 64-bit installer and run it then the 64-bit version will do the "upgrade" over the top
  • Re-Install - if you uninstall the 32-bit version and then install the 64-bit one then the new one finds the existing profile and everything just works

Both options work perfectly and no data or anything is lost. The advantage of doing a re-install is that you have the 64-bit Thunderbird installed in "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird", if you do the upgrade you have 64-bit software in a directory that suggests it is 32-bit.