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Wednesday 18 April 2007

Mozilla Thunderbird 2 Is Finally Ready

Thunderbird 2 is finally available. Download here. Install it on top of the old Thunderbird (1.5...).

Some of your old extensions and themes might not work (at first). The theme I was using did not work and things looked very messed up. I switched to the new default theme and things were fine. If you use small icons on the toolbars, you may need to Customize and uncheck and then re-check Use small icons to make this work.

Release notes are here if you are interested in all the details of what is new.

The only problem I had was with my Hotmail that I had set up with 2 extensions so I could read and send Hotmail email via Thunderbird. To fix it, I had to delete my Hotmail account within Thunderbird and recreate it using the new Webmail feature in Thunderbird. If you are dealing with this situation too, make sure to include "@hotmail.com" in the user name, and for the outgoing server, use the one you were using with the old Hotmail extension set up. The new account will default to an outgoing server of: "Webmail - localhost" which is a weird combination of your regular ISP account and hotmail and this does not work. Use the hotmail - local outgoing server that you set up previously - it works.
Then, I went onto my hotmail on the web and marked everything as UNread and then re-downloaded all the messages into Thunderbird. Adjust the account settings for the newly set up Hotmail in Thunderbird to keep messages on the server.

My Gmail, that I had set up as a POP account in Thunderbird still works fine.

If you want to force some old extensions to work in the new Thunderbird, install the Mr Tech Local Install extension (Firefox and Thunderbird) and then configure it to allow the old extensions to work (this doesn't work for the old webmail/hotmail extensions though). It may not work for some extensions.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Use the hotmail - local outgoing server that you set up previously - it works.

I'm thinking about trying Thunderbird 2, but have never used the earlier versions, so I don't know what to put for the hotmail server...any ideas?

(Great blog, btw.)

Thor said...

If you are using it for the first time, it may set things up automatically properly. If not, try: Outgoing server name: localhost, description: hotmail and use name and password: your hotmail email address

BuyMyStuffPlease said...

I tried Thunderbird last year. It was annoying to go thru the webmail extension thing. And no easy, clean, way to do backup and restore from backup. I got it working, and yahoo mail as well, but was just way too much work. And I really don't care about rss in my mail software. I'd prefer to keep seperate. So am glad to see that new Thunderbird is making an effort to incorporate the webmail extension functionality by default. Please try to rewrite this blog post to explain (for lazy people like me) how to do hotmail and yahoo mail with the new Thunderbird. I can figure out the pop mail (my webhost and gmail) myself. THANKS FOR THE INFO and for posting on LH. It was very good info!

Thor said...

to set up for webmail in Thunderbird 2: lets use hotmail as an example:
- Open Thunderbird
- Tools, Account Settings
- Add Account
- Webmail
- type in the name you use
- enter the email address
- incoming user name: your full email address
... and continue on (I think there is maybe one more step)

finished.
Then, in the Account Settings window, click on the Server Settings below "Web mail - youremailaddress"
- make sure to check off Leave messages on server (if you want full access to the messages when away from home), and check off "until I delete them" (which means the messages stay on the server until you go to the web site and delete them there).

Anonymous said...

I just downloaded Thunderbird 2.0, and when I go to "add account", I don't have the option for web mail. So I still can't seem to figure out how to get hotmail to work. Thoughts?

Thor said...

hmm. I guess the update only includes Gmail and .Mac webmail.
For hotmail you may still need the Webmail extension. Get these extensions from
http://webmail.mozdev.org/installation.html
You might just have to install the Webmail extension, then restart and then it will be available in the Account options. If not, then you will also need to install the Hotmail extension too.

Anonymous said...

The webmail extension is not yet available for version 2. I think I might need to go back to Outlook Express for my hotmail. Bummer.

Thor said...

go to the Firefox add-ons site and download Mr Tech Local Install, install it in Thunderbird. Then install the Webmail extension - there should be an option for forcing compatibility now.

Anonymous said...

Thanks! That Mr Tech Local thing worked like a charm, allowing me to add-on the webmail and hotmail things. Still didn't give the webmail option under add accounts, but it did allow me to set up hotmail through the pop option. All good.

Anonymous said...

Hello - I've found this site of great help in trying to get Hotmail on Thunderbird. I went ahead and downloaded Mr. Tech, WebMail, and WebMail-Hotmail. Did everything listed to this point. Also I found out this - http://www.neilturner.me.uk/2006/Apr/11/using_windows_live_mail_i.html

However, after all that, I still can't get my messages to download. It accepts my password and looks to be working, but nothing downloads as the 'folder is being customized' after almost 30min.

Is there something that I'm missing? Any help would be great.

Thx

Thor said...

that's odd. Are you using Windows Live Hotmail (as opposed to Hotmail/MSN Hotmail)? Maybe it requires different settings. I'm using the old MSN Hotmail, so I'm not familiar with any differences in settings. Try changing the Security Settings for it and see if that works.

Anonymous said...

Thor -

Thanks for your insight. I reset my Hotmail back to the original version (not Live) and made the switch in the WebMail Options. Once I did that, it took my password and the messages downloaded = success. However, now when I try to send a message via Thunderbird it asks for my password over and over, but won't take it. Not even if I ask it to save it in the Password Manager - thus the message won't send = how odd...

Any thoughts???

Thx again,

Thor said...

You need to adjust your outgoing server settings. When you Edit these, make sure to enter your whole email address for the user name. This should fix things

Anonymous said...

my thunderbird 2 wont connect to localhost.

I did everything Thor said to do, and whenever i try to get my mail, and teh bottom it will say "Connected to Localhost' but then a few minutes later a pop up will appear saying "could not connect to Localhost"

I typed in everything correctly, downloaded all i needed, and i'm using the old Hotmail. do i have to edit that Secure Connection thing, or what else do i have to tweak in my Thunderbird. Help! :[

Thor said...

Nash
See my latest Thunderbird post:
http://thortweak.blogspot.com/2007/05/thunderbird-and-hotmail.html