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Configuring Your Primary Thunderbird Account

This page will walk you through the steps necessary to configure Thunderbird to work with the CIT postoffice servers.

This page assumes you have installed Thunderbird through the Bear Access channel in uPortal.Cornell, or by using the Bear Access installation CD, which is available at the CIT Contact Center).

If you already installed Thunderbird from an installer you got on the Mozilla website or elsewhere, you'll need to update your security settings (step 7 on this page) and teach Thunderbird about the Cornell LDAP server. Really. You want to do both of these things.

1. Check and/or change your Who I Am settings

2. Decide whether you'll use IMAP or POP

3. Start Thunderbird

4. Import Settings from Eudora (if you have any to import)

5. Import Address Books from Eudora (if you have any to import)

6. Import Mail from Eudora (if you have any to import)

7. Configure Security Settings
(This is really important. If you don't follow these instructions, Thunderbird will not retrieve your mail.)

These instructions assume you are changing from Eudora to Thunderbird. The same steps work if you are migrating from Outlook or Outlook Express; just substitute your mail client wherever you see "Eudora" in these directions.

 

 

1.    Check and/or change your Who I Am settings

Who I Am is a web-based tool for telling CIT's mail servers how to handle messages addressed to you at NetID@cornell.edu.

• If you've just gotten your NetID, you need to set your options in Who I Am. You'll also need to make a note of your full postoffice account address.
• If you've already been using your NetID@cornell.edu address and are making the switch to Thunderbird, you still need to go to Who I Am to make a note of that full postoffice account address. You don't have to make a selection in step C below.

1. In the Bear Access channel in uPortal.Cornell, choose Who I Am in the Mail and Directory Services folder. (Or use any browser to go to http://whoiam.cornell.edu)

• If you see the Bear Access Update Notification dialog box, click Download so that updated software can be transferred to your computer.
• If you do not have a Kerberos ticket active, you will be asked to log on through either Kerberos or CUWebLogin.

2. In Who I Am, click on the Electronic Mail tab.
3. To receive messages addressed to your NetID@cornell.edu address (for example, ewe2@cornell.edu), make sure the first radio button is selected.

• Select the second button only if you want all messages sent to you to be rejected.
• Select the third button only if you want messages to be delivered to more than one address; enter those addresses in the box.

4. Make a note of your complete e-mail address. It is listed in the text associated with the first radio button and takes the form

NetID@postofficeX.mail.cornell.edu

with a number between 6 and 10 replacing the X. The number is very important!

5. Click Set it! at the bottom of the window. (If you see a Security Information box, click Continue.)

You may want to check or modify your directory entry at this time. Depending on your Cornell affiliation, you can use Who I Am to edit all or part of your directory information by clicking the Electronic Directory tab and modifying the information found there. Then click Update Listing at the bottom of the window.

 

 

2.    Decide whether you'll use IMAP or POP

IMAP and POP are two ways Thunderbird can handle your e-mail. Each has advantages. Please see our IMAP vs. POP page for more information. You'll need to choose one before you can start using Thunderbird.

You can change your mind later, but it's a little complicated, so take a minute to decide which method will work best for you.

 

 

3.    Start Thunderbird

If Thunderbird didn't start automatically when you finished installing, launch Thunderbird.

The first time Thunderbird runs, the Import Wizard will open automatically. You actually don't want to import anything right now, so just click Cancel. We'll import (if you want to) a little later.

After the Import Wizard, the New Account Wizard will open automatically. Do one of the following:

If you have NO accounts or settings to import, click this link to go to our Account Wizard page. It will open in a new window or tab. Come back to this page, step SEVEN, when you finish.

If you WILL be importing account settings, just click Cancel. We'll get your account(s) set up a different way. Continue with the instructions on this page.

Why aren't we using these fine Wizards?

You might wonder why didn't we let Thunderbird import our Eudora configuration information automatically. The automatic import does not include the contents of your OUT mailbox, and you might want to keep those messages as a record of what you've sent.

It also places all the messages from your Eudora IN mailbox in the new local Inbox. If you have a lot of old mail, you may prefer to keep the old mailboxes separate from your new ones. Later, if you wish, you may drag mailboxes from the Eudora Mail folder to the root of the Local Folders and merge the contents of your original OUT mailbox with your Sent mailbox.

 

 

4.    Import Settings from Eudora

Eudora called them Personalities. Thunderbird calls them Accounts. Either way, they are the identities under which you send and receive mail. They include information such as your name, your address, and what mail servers you use.

Many people only have one account/personality, but if you use a special mailbox or manage an e-list, you may have multiple accounts.

From Thunderbird's Tools menu, select Import. In the Import wizard, select Settings, then click Next.
From the list of other mail clients, select Eudora, then click Next. (Windows: Thunderbird will usually find the file it needs, but if it asks for your help, the file you need is called Eudora.ini and is typically located in your Eudora folder.)
Click Finish when Thunderbird is done importing your settings.

 

 

5.    Import Address Books from Eudora

Before you continue, take a moment to read our Optional Migration Tools for Thunderbird page, to see if your needs would be better met using an alternative method of migrating your address book and/or messages. If you have no Address Book to import, skip to step 6.

If you try these steps and Thunderbird can't find your Eudora Address Book, we've got a help page for that...

From Thunderbird's Tools menu, select Import. In the Import wizard, select Address Books, then click Next.
From the list of other mail clients, select Eudora, then click Next.
Click Finish when Thunderbird is done importing your address book entries. If your Eudora address book included groups, you may find duplicate or near-duplicate entries were imported, so it's worth reviewing and deleting.

 

 

6.    Import Mail from Eudora

Before you continue, take a moment to read our Optional Migration Tools for Thunderbird page, to see if your needs would be better met using an alternative method of migrating your address book and/or messages.

If you have no mail to import, skip to step 7.

Wait, wait, wait! Before you just slop all your old mail into Thunderbird, take a little time to clean up your Eudora mailboxes first. You've probably been meaning to do this anyway. CIT recommends: Delete unwanted mail, mailboxes, and attachments You have probably collected a lot of e-mail messages over the years. Some of it may no longer be relevant and some may simply be trash or junk. Only your local mail will be imported; mail on the server will stay there. So, if you are using POP, you should go through your mailboxes and delete unwanted mail. If you are using IMAP, go through your local folders; don't worry about files on the server. At the same time, you may want to clean up your attachment folder, deleting files or moving them out of the attachment folder. Doing the cleanup now will speed up the import process later. After performing the cleanup, remember to compact your mailboxes to permanently remove discarded messages. (From Eudora's Special menu, choose Compact Mailboxes.) Check disk space If your hard drive is close to full, you should verify that you have at least as much free space on your hard drive as is currently occupied by your Eudora mailboxes and attachments. The import process will duplicate all your mail files and attachments in the Thunderbird folder and the process may actually take up more space than originally used by Eudora. Scan mail folders for viruses or disable Symantec AntiVirus Because the migration process reads and encodes attachments as well as your mail files, you may want to disable your AntiVirus software before you start the import process. Otherwise the import process may hang if a file is quarantined while the migration is being performed. An alternative is to run a full scan on your Eudora mail folder prior to starting the migration.

Okay, now that you know you actually want to import your remaining messages, here's how.

From Thunderbird's Tools menu, select Import. Importing Mail is remarkably like the import of Settings and Address Books you completed earlier. The only difference is that, on the first screen of the import wizard, choose Mail. When you're done, Thunderbird will tell you how many messages it imported into various mailboxes. That's a lot of messages! Aren't you glad you did some trash hauling first?

 

 

7.    Configure Security Settings

This is really important. If you don't follow these instructions, Thunderbird will not retrieve your mail, and you will be sad.

1. From Thunderbird's Tools menu, choose Account Settings.

2. In the Accounts Settings window, on the left, click on Server Settings (it will be just below Eudora Settings or the account name you chose a minute ago).
3. On the right, in the Security Settings section, select SSL.

At this point the Port number shown near the top of the screen should change automatically. If you selected POP back in step 2, the Port will change to 995; if you chose IMAP it will change to 993.  Some users have reported that the automatic thing doesn't always happen, so if it doesn't change for you, you'll need to edit it yourself.

4. Make sure there IS NOT a check in the checkbox labeled Use secure authentication.
5. (POP users only. You chose POP or IMAP in step 2, way up near the top of this web page)
   Set Leave messages on server correctly for your situation. If you always check messages from only one computer, you probably don't need to leave your messages on the server. If you want to be able to check your messages from more than one computer, you'll need to leave them there. (If you do not leave messages on the server, each message will only be available to you on the computer where you first viewed it.)
6. Back on the left, select Outgoing Server (SMTP). It will be the last entry in the list.
7. On the right, near the top, you'll see a list of servers. It's entirely possible that there will only be one entry, as in this screen shot. Click once on the line that includes authusersmtp.mail.cornell.edu, then click Edit.

3. In the small STMP Server dialog box that opens, under Use secure connection, select the second choice, TLS, if available.
   
   Make sure you don't select the third choice, TLS.

4. Click OK to close the small window, then OK to close the account settings window.

 

The instructions for Windows and Macintosh are quite different from this point on, so pick the link that applies to you.

Windows users

Macintosh users

 

 

Instructions for Windows users

From Thunderbird's Tools menu, choose Options. Click on the Advanced icon. Click on the General tab (not the General icon). Click on Config Editor
In the about:config window, in the Filter box, type sspi. The long list of settings shown below will shrink down to just one: network.auth-use-sspi. You want this set to false. If it is already set to false, leave it alone! If it is set to true, double-click anywhere on the network.auth-use-sspi row and the true should change to false. Click on the small X at the upper-right corner of the about:config window to close it, then OK on the Options window to close it.

Now Windows-Kerberos users are done. Yay!

 

Go to Computing at Cornell Thunderbird Home Page

 

 

Instructions for Macintosh users

From the Thunderbird menu select Preferences. Click on the Advanced icon. Click on the General tab (not the General icon). Click on Config Editor.
In the Filter entry box type: nego The long list of settings shown below will shrink down to just five. You'll be working with two of them, then adding a new preference.
Double-click on the network.negotiate-auth.gsslib entry and set its value to /usr/lib/libgssapi_krb5.dylib Click OK. The setting for network.negotiate-auth.using-native-gsslib entry needs to be false. If it is already set to false, leave it alone. If it is set to true, double-click on it; the setting should switch to false.
Right-click (or Control-click) in the white space in the about:config window, below the entries. From the menu that appears, select New, then select Boolean.
For the name of the new preference, enter network.auth.use-sspi Click OK
Select false then click OK Close the about:config window. Close the Preferences dialog box.

Now Macintosh-Kerberos users are done. Yay!

 

Go to Computing at Cornell Thunderbird Home Page