Let me start off by saying I tried to use Apple Mail for my email requirements, but it just refuses to behave without a lot of tweaking to work the way I want it to work with Gmail’s IMAP settings. I have since moved on to Thunderbird and am pleased to say that I am very content with it.
After you have finished setting up Thunderbird as per Gmail’s instructions found here, start up Thunderbird and let it download folders off your Gmail account. Depending on your setup you may just see the Gmail system folders (Inbox, Trash, Sent Messages, etc.) or all the folders will be created for you based on what all labels you have created. Here are the settings I have used for Thunderbird to work elegantly with my set up:
In Thunderbird go to Tools -> Account Settings
On the left pane click on Copies & Folders
In the right pane for the sent folder select other and from the drop down box go all the way to [Gmail] -> Sent Mail, this will ensure your sent mail is stored on your Gmail Sent folder. Do the same for the Drafts folder, except select [Gmail] -> Drafts, as the location to save your drafts. Leave Templates as it is. Do not select other for templates.
To configure your trash folder follow these steps:
- Go to Thunderbird -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Config Editor
- In the filter box type mail.server.server
- You will see a list of keys. The one we are looking for is mail.server.serverX.name. Where X is a number corresponding to your Gmail IMAP account. Remember the number X. For me it was 2.
- Right in an empty space in the window -> new -> string
- In the box that appears enter mail.server.serverX.trash_folder_name, where X is the number you remembered before. For my setup the line is mail.server.server2.trash_folder_name, click OK
- Another box will appear, enter the following [Gmail]/Trash
- You are done press ok. Quit Thunderbird and start it again.
After these settings have been completed you sent mail will be saved in the Sent folder on Gmail, your trash will go directly to Gmail’s trash folder, and your drafts will be saved in the drafts folder on Gmail.
A key point to remember here is that if you delete an email from anywhere in your mailbox all copies of that email will be deleted from your email account. For instance if I delete an email from my Inbox, and have a copy of that email in my archives, and my custom created ABC folder, by deleting the email from my Inbox it will delete the email from my archives folder and my custom created ABC folder. All traces of the email will be wiped.
Credits: All credit for the above steps goes to Gina Trapani, an editor at Lifehacker. Gina Trapani’s version of the above instructions can be found here.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Thank You very much for the info about “Configuring Thunderbird for Gmail IMAP on Leopard”. Your directions were right on target.
Thank you Daniel. I am really glad you found the instructions useful. Stay tuned, there is a lot more to come.
Great article, adding it to my bookmarks!
Is it better to use Imap or pop3 for your gmail with thunderbird specially when you have lots of mail sitting in your gmail accouint? I personally think pop is better as all the mail is not downlaoded on at every connection which I believe is the case with IMAP. Do you concur?
Imap and here is why. When you read you email over an imap connection its marked read on your Gmail account as well. So for instance if you have 10 emails on your imap mail client, those 10 would be marked read on your Gmail account. Now if you were using pop and checked your email on the client and then checked it on the Gmail account those emails would still be sitting in your inbox as if you haven't read them yet. I am sorry I don't understand your question about downloading all the emails on every connection. Neither imap nor pop does that. They only check for new email for the time intervals that you set.