Thunderbird is free email software for Mac OS X and Windows.

This walkthrough will show you how to configure Thunderbird to work with your Plesk email address.

Instructions

  1. Open Thunderbird.
  2. Open the Tools menu, then click on Account Settings...

    thunder_account

  3. At the bottom of the left column, click Account Actions.
  4. Click Add Mail Account... A new window will pop up.

    thunder_add

  5. Here, enter your account information:

    thunder_basicinfo
    • Your name: The name you want to display with this email address.
    • Email address: Your new email address.
    • Password: The password you created for this email address.
    • Leave the Remember password option selected.
  6. Click Continue.
  7. After a few seconds, Thunderbird will finish testing your settings.
  8. You may need to click Edit if Thunderbird auto-populated your settings.
  9. From the dropdown menu, choose either IMAP (keep messages synced with the server) or POP (download messages to your local computer).
    Also, next to SMTP, change the port to 25.

    thunder_imap_pop
  10. Click Manual Setup... The window will close.thunder_manual
  11. From the left menu, under your new email address, choose Server Settings.

    thunder_serversettings

  12. Enter your incoming mail server information:

    thunder_incoming_details

    • Server Name: mail.EXAMPLE.COM (replace EXAMPLE.COM with your domain name)
    • Port: You should leave this set to the default. It should be 143 for IMAP, 993 for Secure IMAP (with SSL), 110 for POP, or 995 for Secure POP (with SSL). More about SSL below.
    • User Name: username@example.com (this should be your full email address)
    • Connection security: None or SSL/TLS. SSL encryption will improve (but not guarantee) your email security. A warning: If you did NOT install a matching SSL certificate for your domain, you will get a warning that says Security Error: Domain Name Mismatch when you try to access your email. If you want to use SSL without the popup, you may want to install this extension for Thunderbird.
    • Authentication method: Password
    • Server Settings: You can choose these options based on personal preference.
  13. Now, from the left menu select Outgoing Server (SMTP).

    thunder_smtp

  14. Click on the name of your outgoing email server in the list so it's highlighted.

    thunder_smtp_edit

  15. Click Edit...
  16. In the new window, enter your SMTP server settings:

    thunder_smtp_details

    • Description: Enter a label for this outgoing mail server for your own use.
    • Server Name: mail.EXAMPLE.COM (replace EXAMPLE.COM with your domain name)
    • Port: 25 is the default port, and it should be 465 if you have SSL enabled.
    • Connection security: None or SSL/TLS. Again, you will get a warning if you choose to use SSL encryption but don't have a matching certificate installed on your server.
    • Authentication method: Password
    • User Name: username@example.com (this should be your full email address)
  17. Click OK. The popup will close.
  18. Click OK.

Congratulations! You've just set up Thunderbird with your new email address. Click the Write a new message button to send yourself a test message, so you can make sure you are able to send and receive.

Edit Outgoing SMTP and Incoming Settings

If you have trouble sending or receiving email, you may need to adjust your outgoing and incoming email settings.

  1. Open Thunderbird.
  2. Open the Tools menu, then click on Account Settings...
  3. Follow from Step 11 to last step in the previous section to adjust all of your incoming and outgoing email server settings.
  4. Click OK.

Use ISP Outgoing Mail Server

If all of your settings are correct and you are still unable to send email with Thunderbird, your Internet Service Provider may be blocking outgoing traffic on the standard SMTP (mail-sending) port. ISPs do this in an effort to cut down on spam.

You can find out whether this is happening in your case with a telnet test. At the command prompt, type:

telnet example.com 25

Use your own domain name instead of example.com.

If the telnet test times out or can't connect, this indicates that your ISP is blocking Port 25. In that case, you should contact your ISP for instructions on how to use their outgoing mail server instead. The email will still be coming from your own email address. It will just route through their servers instead of our servers.

Troubleshooting

Cannot send email

This may be due to your Internet Service Provider blocking the standard outgoing email port. See the Use ISP Outgoing Mail Server section above for help.