We will use the included email client, Thunderbird. When you look at the launcher bar on the left you do not see this program initially. Click the “Search your computer…” icon and then type in “email” to show this under Applications (click the “A” icon at the very bottom). Click the Thunderbird icon to launch the program. Now that you have it displayed, you can right-click the icon and select “lock to launcher” if you want this to be permanently displayed there.
Since this is the first execution we will get a chance to set up our email address. You can choose a new email address but we are replacing existing operations so we will click the “Skip this and use my existing email” button. Now we are at the account setup screen.
You should be able to click “Continue” and it will find your email settings. If not, use the “Manual Config” button. When you have the settings (incoming, outgoing, username), click Done and you will see the Thunderbird program displayed with the Inbox and Trash plus local folders.
If you are like me, you have multiple email addresses in different locations. We will set up the additional email addresses now. Move your mouse to the top of the window displaying “xxx – Mozilla Thunderbird” and you will see the menu bar displayed. Click Edit-Account Settings-Account Actions and then “Add Mail Account.” Follow the same steps above for adding the email account and add as many different accounts as desired. I have set up email addresses for my web site, isp, Gmail, and Hotmail. These reside in Thunderbird and work just as they did in MS Outlook.
Since we are going with the belief that you have experience with MS Outlook and other email clients basic functionality such as checking email, creating and sending, or address book will not be covered here. One quite useful function is an email signature so we will cover setting up that feature.
In order to set up a signature for a specific account, right-click on the account name and select Settings. You will see the signature text block in the right pane of you select the service itself. If you want a plain text signature that is easily accomplished. You could also compose a signature using HTML by checking that block, attach an image or other type of file, and even use a vCard.
If you want to create a rather fancy signature with special formatting or maybe an image it will be better to attach the signature as a graphics file. Since security should always be at the forefront of our minds as computer users, we will cover the junk settings available in Thunderbird. While you have the Account Settings displayed, click on Junk settings for the account that you desire to change.
Although you could train the program to recognize junk emails, it may be easier and safer to use one of the services that is already set up to tag junk email. The default here was SpamAssasin but the four others include Bogofilter, DSPAM, POPFile, and SpamPal. You could use this while you “train” the system to watch for specific junk emails. While the email is in the Inbox you can right-click on it and mark it as junk. If it is thought to be junk, it will display the junk icon to the right of the message line
