Email with Thunderbird - Docs.is.ed.ac.uk - University of Edinburgh

Email with 

Thunderbird 

Workbook 

Version 4 

March 2007

Email with 


Version 4, March 2007 

IS Document Number: H.1.-WB-3563

iv 

Preface 

Preface 

This guide is intended for any user of the Mozilla Thunderbird email package with 

legitimate access to an Edinburgh University email account. This should include 

almost all staff and students. This guide to Thunderbird should be useful whether 

you need to run it on a staff machine, at home, over wireless, with ResNet, and on 

Windows, Mac OS X or Linux. 

You will need an EASE account in order to use this guide, because the University 

Mail Service uses your EASE login details as its username and password. 

Screenshots in this document are generally taken from Thunderbird 1.5 for the 

Windows XP platform, since this is the most commonly run operating system. 

However, Thunderbird is not significantly different on any platform in terms of 

functionality, and you should be able to make good use of this guide on any of the 

three supported operating systems. There are some small differences in appearance 

between versions, such as different icons appearing on the Macintosh toolbar. 

This workbook is suitable for any user with a basic knowledge of windows, Mac OS 

X or Linux, and includes information on sending and receiving email messages, 

managing your mail and configuring Thunderbird. 

Portions of this document were written by members of the Undergraduate Support 

Team, and I am pleased to acknowledge their work in the preparation of this 

document. 

Matt Beilby, March 2007 

Copyright © Edinburgh University Information Services 2007 

Permission is granted to any individual or institution to use, copy or redistribute this 

document whole or in part, so long as it is not sold for profit and provided that the 

above copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies. 

Where any part of this document is included in another document, due 

acknowledgement is required. 

Email with Thunderbird

Contents 

What is Email? 3 

Advantages of Email........................................................................... 3 

What You Need To Use It.................................................................... 3 

Email at Edinburgh University............................................................. 3 

 

Contents 

About Email Messages 5 

The Subject......................................................................................... 5 

The Email Address.............................................................................. 5 

About Thunderbird 6 

Versions of Thunderbird...................................................................... 6 

Telling the Difference between Versions............................................. 6 

Setting Up Thunderbird 7 

Supported Desktop Thunderbird Setup............................................... 7 

Getting Around in Thunderbird 14 

The Toolbar....................................................................................... 14 

Folder List......................................................................................... 14 

Message List..................................................................................... 15 

Preview Pane.................................................................................... 16 

Receiving Email 21 

Checking Manually for Mail............................................................... 21 

Reading Email 22 

How Messages are Displayed ......................................................... 22 

Sending Email 24 

Replying to Email 26 

Forwarding Email 27 

Forwarding as Inline Text.................................................................. 27 

Sending an Email to More Than One Address 28 

CCs and BCCs ................................................................................. 28 

Mailing Lists...................................................................................... 28 

Sending an Email with a Priority Header 29 

Receiving Email with a Priority Header............................................. 29 

Sending HTML Formatted Email Messages 30 

Turning on HTML Formatting............................................................ 30 

Smileys (or Emoticons)..................................................................... 30 

Attachments 31 

Care When Using Attachments ........................................................ 31 

Attaching a File to a Message .......................................................... 31 

Receiving an Attached File............................................................... 32 


vi 

Contents (continued) 

Searching for Email Addresses 34 

Looking Up an Edinburgh University Address Using the Supported 

Desktop Version of Thunderbird........................................................ 34 

Looking Up External Addresses........................................................ 36 

The Address Book ............................................................................ 36 

Creating a Signature 37 

Filing messages 41 

Creating New Folders ...................................................................... 41 

Moving Messages to Folders ........................................................... 41 

Selecting Multiple Messages............................................................ 42 

Saving Messages 43 

Printing Messages 44 

Searching Messages 45 

Filtering Messages ........................................................................... 45 

Advanced Search in Thunderbird...................................................... 46 

Deleting Messages 49 

Deleting Messages with the Supported Desktop Version of 

Thunderbird....................................................................................... 49 

Deleting Messages with the Download Version of Thunderbird........ 49 

Changing the Way you Delete Messages......................................... 50 

Reducing Quota Usage 51 

Deleting Messages........................................................................... 51 

Removing an Attached File............................................................... 51 

Archiving Mail 53 

Your Local Folders Directory............................................................. 53 

Creating Local Folders in Thunderbird.............................................. 54 

Moving your Local Folders Directory................................................ 55 

Backing up your Local Folders Directory.......................................... 56 

Marking Messages 57 

Labels............................................................................................... 57 

Flags................................................................................................. 58 

Priority............................................................................................... 58 

Marking Mail as Read/Unread.......................................................... 59 

Message Filters 60 

Extensions and Themes 65 

Extensions........................................................................................ 65 

Themes............................................................................................. 67 

Practical Exercises 73 

Sending Email from Home 93 

Using Your ISP’s Outgoing Mail Server............................................. 93 


Chapter 1 

Introduction to 

Thunderbird

What is Email? 

Electronic mail – or ‘email’ – allows a user of one computer to send a message to a 

user on another computer. The computers must both be connected to a network, so 

that the message can travel over the network from one computer to another. 

Advantages of Email 

Email travels very fast, but does not usually interrupt the recipient in the way that a 

phone call does. Instead, the recipient can read and respond to a message when 

it is convenient to do so. An email message can be saved to a file, printed out, or 

merely kept indefinitely. Best of all, once the infrastructure and connection fees are 

paid, all email is free. 

 

Introduction to Thunderbird 

What You Need To Use It 

To use email, you need to have an email program (such as Thunderbird), a computer, 

and an email account. Your computer must be connected to a network, since this 

is how email is sent and delivered. 

The network can just be in a single office (a LAN, or Local Area Network) but, 

certainly for email, you will usually be connected in some way to a much larger 

network (known as a WAN, or Wide Area Network). 

Wide Area Networks connect together many smaller networks, so that users can 

communicate across large distances. The largest WAN of all is the Internet, which 

connects together networks all over the world. 

Email at Edinburgh University 

All staff and students (both undergraduate and postgraduate) of the University 

of Edinburgh are given access to email, and are encouraged to use it for 

communication with colleagues. Some courses will require the use of email as 

a mandatory element of the course work. Email can be used to communicate 

with people within the University of Edinburgh, but can also be sent outside the 

University, to anyone on the internet with an email account. 

There are two central mail servers at the University, one covering the needs of 

staff users and the other providing mail services to students of the University. Both 

servers provide access to messages using the Internet Message Access Protocol 

(IMAP) which allows storage and filing of messages on the server and access to 

your mailbox from almost any computer connected to the internet. 

If your electronic mail service is on one of these two servers, then you will be 

provided with space on your mail server for storage of mail messages, as well as an 

entry in either the student or staff email directory, allowing people to find your email 

address. You will also be provided with the means to set up an EASE account, the 

username and password which are essential for access to your email. 

If you are a student you will be provided with account information at, or even before, 

matriculation which should facilitate setting up your EASE account. 



About IMAP 

At the University of Edinburgh, both the student (SMS) and Staffmail servers use a 

system called IMAP. 

IMAP allows you to read email messages directly from your folders on the mail 

server, instead of first moving messages from the mail server to your own computer. 

In short, with IMAP you don't have to remove a message from the mail server in 

order to read it with an email program. 

This is useful because whilst your mail server is likely to be accessible from any 

computer with a network connection, your own computer won't usually let you read 

emails that have already been downloaded unless you are right in front of it. 

Effectively, IMAP gives you the same 'travel anywhere' freedom that you might 

have with a web mail service, like Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail or the University's own web 

mail service, but it puts faster, more powerful tools at your disposal - in this case, 

Thunderbird. 

This workbook covers the use of Mozilla Thunderbird, although other packages 

such as Outlook 2003, Apple Mail, Entourage 2004 or even Pine can be used with 

the University’s mail servers. 

In fact, not only can you load up a different email program, on a different computer, 

and still be able to see all of your email, but the IMAP service will even remember if 

an email has been read, forwarded, or replied to and mark it appropriately. 

You can even create new folders on an IMAP server, and filter or move different 

types of email into those folders. The server will remember all of this information 

about your email, so that you can retrieve your messages in the same way from any 

location. Wherever you are checking your email from, it should be just the way you 

left it. 


About Email Messages 

Email messages are composed of two parts: the header and the text. The text is 

usually called the message body. The content of the message body is simply the 

message that you wish to send. 

The message header is also plain text, but formatted in a way that email programs 

are able to understand. The header contains information necessary to get the 

message to its intended recipient. It is created by Thunderbird and is used by the 

computer network to route the message to its recipient. 

 


There is a wealth of information available in a message header, including: who 

the message was from (possibly also with a different reply-to address), the date 

and time the message was sent, the address the message was sent to (since you 

can check a number of accounts from Thunderbird), the subject the sender gave 

the message, and even which machines the mail travelled through as it was being 

delivered. 

Thunderbird ensures that the header is in an appropriate format, however you have 

to supply the program with two essential pieces of information: a subject line and the 

email address of the intended recipient. 

The Subject 

This is something you type in to identify a message. When the message gets to the 

recipient, their mail program will tell them that they have new email and will show 

this subject line on their screen. It’s tempting just to make the subject line Hi!, but 

you should avoid this. Some people get a lot of mail and if they wish to look up a 

message later it’ll be a lot harder if there are 50 or even 500 messages with the 

subject lines Hi!, Hello, or Yo! 

If you try to send an email without a subject line, Thunderbird will prompt you to add 

one. Even if you choose not to add a subject line, Thunderbird will add one for you. 

In this case the subject line will be (no subject). 

You should try to make the subject line relevant to the text of the message you’re 

sending. You should also try to make the subject line reasonably short. The subject 

usually has to fit in a one line display consisting of the sender, the date, and the 

subject, so there’s not much room and long subject lines will be truncated. So the 

rule for subject lines is: make it relevant and keep it short. 

The Email Address 

The Internet is organised in such a way that everyone has a unique email address. 

So to send a message, you’ll need to know the email address of the recipient. The 

easiest way to obtain this is simply to ask the person. If they are also at Edinburgh 

University then you can look them up using the search facility, either from within the 

Supported Desktop version of Thunderbird, or from the Edinburgh University Search 

page on the web. 

If the person is outside Edinburgh University then often it’s easiest to give them your 

email address and have them send you a message. You can then find out their email 

address from the header of the message they send. 



About Thunderbird 

Mozilla Thunderbird is a recommended email client at the University of Edinburgh. 

Thunderbird is an open source email client which is available for every major 

platform, and is free to download. 

Versions of Thunderbird 

Two versions of Thunderbird are available, which behave in slightly different ways. 

The Supported Desktop version of Thunderbird will be installed remotely, usually by 

your support team. You may or may not have access to this version of Thunderbird, 

depending on your circumstances. The Supported Desktop version of Thunderbird is 

a special package within the University of Edinburgh. 

The other version of Thunderbird is the one that you can download and install 

for yourself. In this guide, this will be referred to as the download version of 

Thunderbird. This is in order to distinguish it from the Supported Desktop version; in 

fact this is the regular version of Thunderbird available for download to everybody in 

the world. 

Availability of Versions 

If you are using Mac OS X or Linux, then you will need to use the download version 

of Thunderbird. You will also need to use the download version of Thunderbird if 

you want to use Thunderbird at home, or on any Windows machine that is not a 

Supported Desktop machine. 

Differences between Thunderbird Versions 

The practical exercises in this guide will work with either version, except where 

noted. In most cases, where Thunderbird versions differ, this guide will cover both 

versions separately. 

Thunderbird will also need slightly different settings to send email from home. For 

information on how to send email from home, see the Appendix of this guide. 

Telling the Difference between Versions 

If Thunderbird has already been installed on your machine and you need to know 

whether or not you have the Supported Desktop version or the regular download 

version, there is a simple step that you can take to find out. 

Open the Extensions dialogue box from the Tools menu of Thunderbird. 

If you can see the text Active Directory Management for Thunderbird, then you 

have the Supported Desktop version. Otherwise, you have the download version. 


Setting Up Thunderbird 

When you first launch Thunderbird, you may be asked if you want to make it 

your default mail application. You should click No, unless you fully intend to 

use Thunderbird as your main email program. If you are still just learning about 

Thunderbird you should click No. 

 


Supported Desktop Thunderbird Setup 

If you are using the Supported Desktop version of Thunderbird many of the setup 

details will have been completed automatically. There are a few remaining steps that 

you need to take to finalize your Thunderbird setup. 

 

One of the first things Thunderbird will ask for is a password. You should type 

your EASE password into the box. 

You should not tick Use Password Manager to remember this password unless 

you are certain that you are the only person who will be able to use Thunderbird on 

that computer account or machine. 

 

Click OK when you have entered your password. 

You will now need to give Thunderbird your correct email address. 

Click Account Settings... from the Tools menu 



The automatic setup will have entered for you an email address based on your 

username or UUN, which will look like 

USERNAME@staffmail.ed.ac.uk or s0453461@sms.ed.ac.uk 

However, most staff and many postgraduate students will have set up an email 

address (sometimes called an 'alias') in the Edinburgh Mail Directory (eddir) which 

is more appropriate to use, since it usually looks better and may contain your full 

name, rather than an impersonal username. 

 

Change the Email Address field to match your mail directory email address entry, 

if you have one, and then click OK. 

You have finished setting up the Supported Desktop version of Thunderbird! 

For more information on the Mail Directory go to: 

http://www.ucs.ed.ac.uk/fmd/unix/docs/mail/eddir.html 

Download Version Thunderbird Setup 

You can download Thunderbird from http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/ 

You will need administrator rights on your computer to install the software. 

If you have installed Thunderbird yourself then you will need to follow the full setup 

procedure. 

 

 

 

 

Start Thunderbird (either from an icon on your desktop or from the Start button 

and then finding Thunderbird in the All Programs menu. 

If you have not run Thunderbird before then the Account Wizard may start 

automatically. Otherwise, to manually start the wizard, go to the Tools menu and 

select Account Settings... (Edit > Preferences in Linux) then click the Add 

Account... button. 

If you are given the option to import settings please set this to Don’t Import and 

click Next. 

The New Account Setup dialogue box will appear. Select Email account and 

click Next. 


Enter the name you want people to see when you send them an email in the 

Your Name: box. 


 

Enter your Edinburgh Mail Directory (eddir) email address entry into the Email 

Address: box and then click Next. 

If you do not have an Directory entry you can use your username@staffmail.ed.ac. 

uk or username@sms.ed.ac.uk. It is generally preferred that you use your Mail 

Directory entry since it usually looks better and may contain your full name, rather 

than an impersonal username. (E.g. Joe.Soap@ed.ac.uk instead of jsoap1@ed.ac. 

uk). 

For more information on the Mail Directory go to: 

http://www.ucs.ed.ac.uk/fmd/unix/docs/mail/eddir.html 

Select IMAP as the type of incoming server. 


10 


 

 

 

 

Set the Incoming Server: setting to either imap.staffmail.ed.ac.uk (if you are 

staff) or imap.sms.ed.ac.uk (if you are a student). 

Set the Outgoing Server: setting to either smtp.staffmail.ed.ac.uk (if you are 

staff) or smtp.sms.ed.ac.uk (if you are a student). 

Click Next 

Change Incoming User Name: to be the username that your use for staffmail or 

sms (this is also called your UUN or University UserName). 

 

 

Leave the Outgoing User Name: setting blank. 

Click Next 

 

You can set the Account Name: to whatever Thunderbird sets by default or 

change it to something you prefer. 

 

Click Next 

Please check all the settings are all correct. 

Click Finish 


11 


You will probably see the Mail Server Password Required box at this time. 

Note that if you accidentally cancel this you will need to restart the Thunderbird 

application in order to have it appear automatically again. 

You should not tick Use Password Manager to remember this password unless 

you are certain that you are the only person who will be able to use Thunderbird on 

that computer account or machine. 

 

 

Enter your password. 

Click OK. 

If at any time you are asked about accepting a “certificate” for *.staffmail.ed.ac.uk or 

*.sms.ed.ac.uk then select Accept this certificate permanently and click OK. 

Now open the Account Settings... dialogue box from the Tools menu 


12 


Note: If you manually started the Account Wizard, this window will already be open. 

 

Select Server Settings under the account name you just created. 

 

In the Security Settings section select SSL. 

It is also recommended to tick both Clean up (“Expunge”) Inbox on Exit and 

Empty Deleted folder on Exit 

 

Select Outgoing Server (SMTP) from the menu on the left. 

Click Edit... from the menu on the right. 


13 


 

 

Untick Use name and password 

Click OK. 

Click OK. 


14 


Getting Around in Thunderbird 

When Thunderbird has finished starting up, it will display a window divided into four 

sections. The top of the window features a toolbar. To the left of the window there is 

a list of the mail folders you can access. A list of messages in the currently selected 

folder will appear on the top right of the window. The bottom right part of the window 

is given over to an area called the Preview Pane which shows the actual contents of 

any message that you click on. 

The Toolbar 

The Toolbar provides quick access to commonly used commands. The Get 

Mail button checks your mail server for new messages. Usually this will happen 

automatically whenever you open Thunderbird, and every few minutes after that. 

The Address Book contains a list of your personal contacts. The rest of the toolbar 

buttons deal directly with your mail. 

Folder List 

The column on the left-hand side of the window lists the mail folders you are able 

to access. Folders can be used to organise your email messages—you can group 

together associated messages (for example, all your messages from a particular 

colleague) by dragging messages to a folder—this will be covered in more detail 

later in this guide. When Thunderbird is used as an IMAP client (as is the case with 

the University’s central mail servers) folders can be located on the mail server you’re 

connected to (sms or staffmail) or can be folders that are created and stored on 

the local machine. Local folders are listed at the bottom of the column, folders on 

servers are listed higher up. To switch between folders, click on their icon or name in 

the folder list. 


15 


Message List 

The top right part of the window is given over to a list of messages in the currently 

selected mail folder, which is divided into a number of columns showing information 

about each message in the folder. The width of a column can be adjusted by moving 

the mouse over the right hand side of a column title, holding the mouse button down 

and dragging the column to the desired width. The order of columns can be changed 

by holding the mouse button down on a column title and dragging the column to the 

desired position. 

Lists of messages can be sorted by clicking on a column name. You will probably 

want to sort messages by date, but there are other useful options available, 

including sorting by sender, by title, and even by whether or not the message 

has been read. In fact, you can sort your message folder according to any of the 

columns in the list. 

Clicking on the same column title again, will reverse the sorting order. For example 

you can sort messages by date in one of two ways. You can sort by date received, 

with the newest emails at the top of the list, but by clicking on the date received 

column again, you can show the oldest emails at the top of your list. A small arrow 

next to the column title indicates in which direction the folder has been sorted. 

Message Thread Column 

If you choose to sort by message threads then emails that have been sent as replies 

to each other will be linked together. This may help you to follow a discussion, or to 

be able to read a series of mail all together. 

Read Mail Column 

The small bullet in this box will be highlighted if an email has been marked as 

having been read. If you click on the column header then all the messages which 


16 


are unread will be sorted to the top of the message list, no matter what date you 

received them on. 

Attachments Column 

A paperclip icon will show in this column if an email has an attachment. You can 

choose to sort all emails with attachments to the top of the list by clicking on this 

column header. However, if you're looking to make some space by deleting emails 

with large attachments, it will probably be easier to simply sort your email using the 

Size header. 

Junk Column 

Mail that has been identified as junk (or spam) will have a trash can icon in this 

column. You can add or remove this junk flag for individual messages by clicking 

within the column. 

Flag Column 

Mail which has been 'flagged' will have a flag icon in this column. You can flag a 

message - to come back to later, for example - by clicking in this column. For more 

information on Flags, and other ways of marking out messages, see the section in 

chapter three called Labels, Flags and Priority. 

Other Columns 

There is a drop down menu, which can be used to select which columns of 

information are displayed in the mail folder. To access the menu, click the button to 

the far right of the column titles. In the picture above it is labelled Click to select 

columns to display. 

Labels 

You can mark out individual messages by context so that they show in different 

colours in the Folder List. For more information see the section in chapter three 

called Labels, Flags and Priority. 

Preview Pane 

The lower right half of Thunderbird’s window is by default given over to an area 

called the Preview Pane. This area of the screen will display the contents of any 

message you click on, without opening another window. Most of the examples in this 

document assume that you will view your mail messages in a new window, rather 

than simply in the Preview Pane. To view messages in a new Thunderbird window, 

double click on any message in the Message List. 


17 



Chapter 2 

Sending and 

Receiving Email

Receiving Email 

Checking Manually for Mail 

Thunderbird will check for new mail when you open the application, 

and then every ten minutes, by default. You can manually check 

whether new messages have been sent to you at any time by 

clicking on the Get Mail button on the tool bar. 

Thunderbird will make a connection with the mail 

server you use and check whether you have received 

any new messages. If you are using the University’s 

central servers (sms or staffmail), messages will 

remain in the Inbox on the server. When there are 

unread messages in this folder, the number of unread 

messages will be highlighted in bold in the Folder List. 

21 

Sending and receiving email 

New, unread messages will also be highlighted in bold in the Message List. 

At the time you receive a new email, you will be notified in Windows by a pop-up 

message in the bottom right of the screen. A new, unread mail icon will also be 

added to the system tray. 

Note: If you expect to have unread messages in other folders in your folder list, 

you can get Thunderbird to show them in the same way as it does with the Inbox. 

Simply right-click on the folder you would like to report new messages, and select 

Properties... Then put a tick in the Check this folder for new messages box, on 

the General Information tab. 

There is information in Chapter Three on how to send new messages directly to 

relevant folders - other than your Inbox - in the section called Filtering Messages. 


22 


Reading Email 

 

 

To read an email message in a new window, double click on the subject line in 

the message list. 

To read your message in the preview pane instead, click just once on the 

message in the message list, instead of double clicking. 

How Messages are Displayed 

When you have opened a message in a new window (by double clicking on the 

message title), the new window will be different in some ways to the first window you 

opened. 

Toolbar 

The toolbar at the top of the message window provides quick access to commands 

related to the message. This is similar to the toolbar displayed at the top of 

Thunderbird’s main window. 

Message Body 

The body of the message, the part that the sender actually wanted you to read, is 

displayed in the lower half of the window. You can close a message window using 

the normal close box. Once a message has been opened, Thunderbird regards it as 

having been read—it is no longer highlighted in bold in the message list. 

A message is considered ‘read’ once you have clicked on the message title, 

whether you looked at it in a new window, or in the Preview Pane. 

Header Information 

If you click on the little symbol next to the 

Subject line (a plus sign in Windows and 

Linux, a triangle in OS X), you will expand 

the message header information. In the 

example picture, the header is already expanded, but has been set to display only 

‘simple’ information. 


23 

There is actually even more detail in the header which is not usually displayed 

– most of the time, you probably won’t need to read this information, but it can prove 

useful if you are curious about a particular email for any reason. 



24 


Sending Email 

Sending a message involves telling Thunderbird to create a new message, 

addressing the message and giving it a subject, writing the text of the message, 

then finally telling Thunderbird to send the message. In this example, you will send 

a message to quip@ed.ac.uk. Messages sent to this address receive an automated 

reply, so it’s a good address to use when you’re getting the hang of using email. 

To create a new, blank email message: 

 

Click the Write button on Thunderbird's toolbar. 

Thunderbird will start a blank message in a new window. 

The new message window, called the Compose window, will have a tool bar, several 

fields for entering in details, such as the recipient’s email address, and subject line. 

The major part of the window will made up of blank space, which you should use to 

write the message that you intend to send. 

 

 

Click on the To: field at the top of your new email. 

Enter the email address quip@ed.ac.uk 

 

When you’ve typed this address, you can click on the subject line to enter this 

information. 

 

Type into the subject line box 

 

This is a test. 

Click once in the large, white area. This is where the text of your message will be 

typed. 

Type a short piece of text. 

In our example we are actually sending the email to a computer that will provide an 

automatic response, so it is not important what we put in the body of the message. If 

you’re stuck for ideas, you can type 


25 

 

This is a short message that I’m writing to learn about 

email. 

Click on the Send button at the top left of the window to send the 

message. 

Your email message will now be sent to the quipper program’s email 

address. Within a few minutes you should expect to receive an automated reply, 

which will include a pithy quote. If you receive this reply, then you know that your 

email has worked. 



26 


Replying to Email 

If the message is open or is highlighted in the message list: 

 

Click on the Reply button on the message toolbar or use the Reply command 

from the main Message menu. 

Thunderbird will open a new message window. The return address of the person 

who sent you the message will be added to the To: field of your reply. In the subject 

field, Thunderbird will have added the subject of the original message, preceded by 

Re:. 

> The body of the message you are replying to will be copied into the reply, and will 

> be highlighted by a thin blue bar, or a column of chevrons, to indicate that you are 

> quoting a previous email. This is called 'quoting' a message. For an example, this 

> paragraph has been written as if it had been quoted from a previous email. 

> 

'Quoting' can be useful to the person who is about to receive your reply. By letting 

them see what they have written to you, it gives them a context when dealing with 

your message. You can add your own text anywhere in the reply—commonly, people 

thread their text throughout the reply. 

For example, if you are replying to a message which has asked you a number of 

questions, you would add your answers after each of the quoted questions. As a 

result, the person you are replying to can read your answers without having to scroll 

back and forward in the message to see the questions they asked you in the first 

place. 

You should remove any extraneous text from the reply. If the person you are replying 

to has included a long preamble and asked a single question at the end, just include 

the question and your answer in the reply. Likewise, if they normally include a 3-line 

signature in their messages, don’t include it in the reply. 

 

Select any quoted text which is unnecessary, and then hit the Delete key to 

remove it from your reply. 

Email with Thunderbird 

Once you have written your reply, you can click on the Send button. This will send 

the message to the email address in the To: field of the finished message.

Forwarding Email 

Forwarding allows you to send an entire message you have received to another 

person—for instance, you may have received a message with information of interest 

to a colleague. 

To send a forwarded message: 

 

 

Select the message that you wish to forward from the message list. 

Click the Forward button on the toolbar. 

27 


Thunderbird will construct a new message: 

• The subject will be taken from the subject of the message you are forwarding, 

preceded by “Fwd:”, and all enclosed in square brackets. This indicates a 

forwarded message to the recipient. 

• The cursor will be placed in the To: field, allowing you to type the address to 

which the message is to be forwarded. 

• The original message is contained within the email as an attachment. You will 

see it listed in the top right hand side of the message window, under the heading 

Attachments. 

Once the message has been addressed, clicking on the Send button will send it. 

Forwarding as Inline Text 

If you want to be able to see the text of the message you are forwarding before you 

send it, or perhaps even want to remove part of the text that might, for example, 

contain sensitive information then you can also do it this way. 

 

Select the message that you want to forward in the message list. 

Go to Message > Forward As > Inline. 


28 


Sending an Email to More Than One Address 

Occasionally you might wish to send the same message to more than one person. 

You may have noticed whilst composing emails with Thunderbird that beneath the 

To: field there several other empty fields. In fact, you can add other addressees to 

these fields. 

 

 

Prepare an email to be sent in the usual way. 

Before you click send, click the next empty field below the To: field. This will 

become another To: field. 

If you wish, you can enter another recipient’s email address in this field. 

To send a CC’ed email, click on the To: in this new field and select either CC: 

or BCC: from the menu. Using this method you can add a number of intended 

recipients to your email message. 

CCs and BCCs 

CC and BCC are short for “Carbon Copy” and “Blind Carbon Copy”. CCs allow you 

to send copies of a message to other recipients, in much the same way as adding 

further recipients to the To: field of an email. However, CC should be used when 

you are sending a copy of a message to someone who isn’t necessarily a primary 

recipient—perhaps the message is being CC’ed to someone who you would like to 

see the message, but not necessarily act upon it. BCC works similarly to CC, but the 

email address of BCC recipients are not included in the header information, so the 

original recipients can not see who has been BCC’ed into the message. 

Mailing Lists 

A mailing list is a facility whereby a message sent to a special address, the list 

posting address, is redistributed to a number of other addresses, the list members’ 

addresses. So sending a message to a single address can reach many people. Lists 

are typically used for distributing information or as discussion groups. 

In the University we support mailing lists on a central server lists.ed.ac.uk using 

a software package called majordomo. User requests (requests to join a list, for 

example) are sent to a special address where they are processed by the majordomo 

software, which may then perform the request or pass it on to the human list 

maintainer if necessary. 

You can find documentation both for those who use majordomo lists and for those 

who maintain them at the following web address: 

http://www.ucs.ed.ac.uk/fmd/unix/docs/mail/lists/ 


Sending an Email with a Priority Header 

Thunderbird does not make a great deal of use of the Priority system, which other 

email clients such as Outlook and Pegasus have made popular, but it does support 

those headings and allow you to set them for the email you send. 

 

To set priority status on an email that you are 

composing: 

Go to the Options menu and move the mouse 

across the Priority menu. 

29 


 

Click one of the Priority options, for example 

High. 

Your email will then be sent with the relevant Priority header, and recipients will 

be able to see your email in whatever way their email program displays prioritised 

messages. 

If you use Priority headers a lot, you can add a quick select menu to the toolbar. 

 

 

Click Write to create a new mail. 

Click Customise from the Toolbars section of the View menu. 

Drag the Priority button onto the main Toolbar, and click OK. 

The toolbar should now contain a drop down menu with Priority options (when you 

are writing an email). 

Receiving Email with a Priority Header 

In Thunderbird, Priority shows up as a field in the Message List. This is not enabled 

by default, but is a column you can add to the Message List. 

When you sort emails by priority, Thunderbird will assume that email it receives 

without any Priority header has a Normal priority, but it won't be labelled as such. 

If you want messages with Priority settings to stand out a bit more clearly, you 

should read the section of this guide called Marking Messages, which you will find in 

Chapter Three. 


30 


Sending HTML Formatted Email Messages 

HTML is the language the world wide web is built on. As well as powering the 

hyperlinks which take you from one page to the next on the web, HTML offers a 

convenient way to create formatted text using commands which are themselves 

made up purely of plain text. 

Some email programs will allow you to send and receive emails written in HTML, 

and will display emails written in HTML in the same way that a web browser would. 

But unless you are absolutely certain that every person who will ever receive your 

email will have an email program which automatically lets them read emails in 

HTML, then you should send emails as 'plain text'. You are strongly advised to send 

plain text emails wherever possible. 

Plain text emails don't allow for much formatting, but whilst they may be bland they 

are universally acceptable. If you send an HTML formatted email to someone whose 

email program does not read HTML, they will see unformatted, unprocessed HTML. 

Unformatted HTML, or HyperText Markup Language, looks like this: 

Hello WorldHello, World! 

You may even have received emails that look like 

this. The HTML portion above sets the title of a 

web page to Hello World, and prints Hello, World! 

in large letters inside a box. 

Turning on HTML Formatting 

You can turn HTML formatting on for your account in Thunderbird: 

 

 

 

Click Account Settings... from the Tools menu. 

Click Composition & Addressing in your account, from the pane on the left. 

Tick the Compose messages in HTML format box, and click OK. 

You will get a formatting toolbar in Thunderbird, and emails will be sent as HTML. 

Smileys (or Emoticons) 

You don't need to send HTML emails to include smileys. Smileys are meant to be 

written as text - in fact, that is how they came about. 

Furthermore, Thunderbird will display smileys as pictures, even though they are 

written as text. This happens when Thunderbird receives emails - when you are 

sending the emails you will still write your smileys as text. 


Here are some common smileys which 

Thunderbird will convert to pictures. 

You will see the pictures if you receive 

emails with these smileys. You should 

type these smileys into your message, if 

you want other people to receive them. 

:-) or :) smile 

:-D 

laughing 

:-( or :( frown 

:-[ embarrassed 

;-) or ;) wink

Attachments 

On occasion it is useful to be able to send a computer file through the email 

system—for example, there may be times when you would like to cooperate with 

a colleague. Unfortunately, the original email standards were designed only to 

guarantee the traffic of plain text files and most programs that you will use, such 

as word-processors, spreadsheets or graphics packages do not produce plain text 

files. When you attach a file to a message, it first undergoes a process known as 

encoding—files are converted to allow safe passage through the email system. The 

encoded file is then bundled up with the email message, and sent to the recipient. 

Once the message has been received, the attached file can be decoded and 

detached from the message. 

31 


Remember: It’s always possible to send the text of a word processing document, 

rather than the whole file. You can copy the text, and paste it into an email message. 

You’ll lose most of the formatting, but it’s likely to be simpler than sending an 

attachment. 

Care When Using Attachments 

Although attachments can be a very useful tool for collaboration, care must be 

taken when using them. There are two points you should consider when sending an 

attachment. 

Firstly, will the person who receives the message be able to open the file? For 

example, you may have the latest version of Microsoft Word, but if the person at the 

other end doesn’t, there’s no point in sending them a file saved in that format. 

Secondly, it is important to pay attention to the size of the file. Attachments greatly 

increase the size of an email message. As a rule, you shouldn’t send files much 

bigger than one megabyte (1MB) by email. If you regularly send files to friends or 

colleagues, then you might like to investigate other options for sending files. Not 

only can individual messages be too big for a server, and therefore be rejected, but 

even a few smaller attachments can add up in size. Many electronic mail providers 

(including the University) set limits on the amount of email that can be stored by their 

users, and it is possible that you (or the person you send an attachment to) may not 

have enough disk space available to receive the message. 

In any case where you are considering sending a file as an attachment, it is sensible 

to first check with the intended recipient to make sure that they will be able to handle 

the file that you send them. 

Attaching a File to a Message 

To attach a file to a message: 

 

 

Create a new message and address it to the person you would like to receive the 

file. (You can practice by sending a file to your own email address). 

Click the Attach button on the toolbar, or choose Attach > File(s) from the File 

menu. 

A standard file open dialogue box will open, allowing selection of the file to be 

attached to the message. 


32 


Select the file you wish to send, and then click Open. 

The attachment will now appear in the top right hand corner of your new email, so 

that you can see that it is ready to send. 

You can also add an attachment in Thunderbird by dragging the file you would like to 

send into the top half of your compose message window. 

Note: If you drag the file into the main message area of the window, you will create 

a link to your file instead, which won’t work for the recipient of your email. You’ll 

know if the file has been attached correctly, because you will see it listed as an 

attachment in the top right hand corner of the message. 

Receiving an Attached File 

When you receive a message with an attached file Thunderbird will display a small 

paper clip next to the message in the message list. To open the attachment that has 

been delivered with the message: 


33 

 

 

 

Select in the message list the email that has the attachment you want to open. 

Go to the File menu, and choose Attachments > Save All. 

Browse to the folder you would like to save your attachments in, and click OK. 

(On the Mac, click Choose). 

This will save all of the attachments in that email to a folder on your computer, where 

you should be able to use them in the same way as any other file. 

If you don’t want to save all of the attachments in an email, you can choose to save 

individual attachments. When you see the name of the file you want to save on the 

Attachments menu, run your mouse over that file name until you see the option to 

Save As... This will allow you to save only the files that you are interested in. 


You can even remove attachments from an email, but leave the body of the 

message intact by choosing to Delete your attachments. When you have finished 

using an attachment, it is a good idea to save space by deleting any out of date 

attachments from your emails. 

The Detach option will first allow you to save your attachment, and then remove it 

from the email, all as one action. This is a good idea, to save space on your mail 

server, but for important files it is probably worth making sure you can open your 

saved copy before you remove any attachments from the email, since removing an 

attachment is permanent. 

Removing an Attached File 

Information on Removing an Attached File is contained in the Archiving Mail section 

of the chapter Managing your Email. 


34 


Searching for Email Addresses 

Before you can send an email to someone, you will need to know their email 

address. You can enter this manually or, if you are replying to a mail, the address 

will usually be included automatically when you click reply. 

Sometimes you will need to search to find the address of the person that you want 

to email. This is usually quite easy if the person you want to email is a member of 

the University, since a searchable record of all of the Edinburgh Mail Directory email 

addresses is maintained. It can be more difficult to find an email address if you are 

searching for an address external to the University of Edinburgh. 

Note: You can only search for student email addresses if you are using a computer 

within the University of Edinburgh. 

Looking Up an Edinburgh University Address Using the 

Supported Desktop Version of Thunderbird 

The SDP version of Thunderbird has a built-in facility to allow you to search the 

Edinburgh Mail Directory from within the Thunderbird program. 

 

Select Find > Search Addresses... from the Edit menu. 

 

Bring up the drop down menu for the Search in: box. Choose either eddir (if you 

are searching for a staff member) or smsdir (if you are searching for a student 

email address). 


35 

 

Type in the surname of the person whose email address you are looking for in 

the box after Any Name and contains. 


The email addresses matching the name you have searched for will display below 

the search box. In the example above, there is only one name which matches. If you 

were to search for a more common name, such as Smith, then you would get more 

matches, and you would need to discern from the Name field which email address 

was for the right person. 

 

If you want to send an email to that person, select their name from the list 

displayed, and then click Write. 

Looking Up an Edinburgh University Address Using the 

University Search Web Page 

You can also search the Mail Directory from the Search page on the University web 

site. You will need to do this if you are not using the Supported Desktop version of 


Using a web browser, go to: 

http://www.ed.ac.uk/search/ 


36 


 

Type in the surname that you are searching for in either the Staff Email and 

Phones Directory box or in the Student Email Directory box and then click the 

appropriate Search button. 

Note: You will only be able to search the student directory if you are using a 

machine within Edinburgh University, such as a computer in the open-access labs. 

You can search the staff list from home, but the student search will not be available. 

Looking Up External Addresses 

Many other education institutions provide similar email directories which can be 

used to search for addresses of staff. Try the home page of any university or college 

to find a link to their directory. It is worth noting that it is exceptionally rare for student 

directories to be made available to those outside of a college of university (as, for 

example, the Edinburgh student directory cannot be searched by anyone outside the 

University). 

The Address Book 

Thunderbird features an address book which can be used to store the names and 

addresses of people that you email often. This can save having to look up their 

address each time you would like to send them a message. 

To access the address book: 

Click on the Address Book button 

on Thunderbird’s toolbar. 


37 

Creating a Signature 

The way that Thunderbird uses signatures is that you first create a plain text file 

containing your signature, and then you choose to use that file as your signature. If 

you already have a signature file, you should be able to use that. Once set up, your 

signature should be automatically appended to the end of every email you compose. 

This works on a per account basis, so if you are managing more than one email 

account from within Thunderbird, you can use different signature files for each 

account. 


 

 

Open a text editor. In Windows, for example, you could use Notepad. ( Start > 

Run then type Notepad and hit Return). 

Create your signature in your text editor. If you already have a signature, you can 

copy and paste it into place from another location. 

 

 

Save the file in a safe place - as a plain text file. 

In Thunderbird, go to Tools > Account Settings… 

 

Make sure that your Staffmail or SMS mail account is selected in the left panel by 

its main parent folder, and then check the Attach this signature: box in the right 

panel. 

 

 

Click Choose, then locate and select the text file you saved. Click Open. 

Click OK to accept the new settings. 

 

Check that this has worked by starting to compose a new message. Click Write, 

and your new message window should appear, with the signature already 

included at the bottom of the message. 


Chapter 3 

Managing your 

email

Filing messages 

Thunderbird allows you to group messages together in folders. If you are using one 

of the University’s central mail servers, you can create folders on the mail server 

(which can then be accessed by you from any computer connected to the internet) 

or you can create folders on the computer you are using for your current mail 

session. 

41 

Managing your email 

Creating New Folders 

To create a new folder on the mail server: 

 

 

Click on the Inbox that is part of your University Mail account. 

Choose New > Folder from the File menu. 

A dialogue box will appear, asking you to name the new folder. 

 

Type a name for the folder, and then click OK. 

Thunderbird will create a new, empty folder on the server with the name that 

you specified. Folders that are created on the server will be accessible from any 

computer with an internet connection and running an email program that can use 

IMAP. So, for example, a folder created on one of the University’s mail servers could 

be accessed from a home computer or from a computer in an internet cafe. 

To create a new folder on a local desktop machine: 

 

 

Click on the Local Folders icon in the folder list 

Choose New > Folder from the File menu. 

A folder will be created in the local folders list. This folder will only be available on 

the machine you have created the folder, as will any messages that you move to the 

folder. 

Note: If you copy a message from a folder on the server to a folder on your desktop 

(local) computer, then Thunderbird will remove the message from the server folder 

– you will no longer be able to access this email from any other computer. 

Moving Messages to Folders 

To move a message into a different folder: 

Find the message that you want to move in the message list. 


42 


 

 

 

Point at the message with the mouse pointer. 

Hold down the mouse button and drag the message over to the folder list at the 

left of Thunderbird’s window. Move the mouse pointer over the folder into which 

you want to ‘drop’ this message. The folder will be highlighted when you have the 

pointer hovering over it. 

Release the mouse button to move the message to that folder. 

Selecting Multiple Messages 

It is possible to select more than one message in the message list at the same time, 

and move messages as a group into other folders. 

If the messages are next to each other in the list: 

 

 

Click on the first message that you would like to move. 

Hold down Shift and click on the last message that you would like to move. 

This should select the first message you clicked on, the last message you clicked 

on, and all of the messages between them in the list. 

 

Now drag the selected messages to another folder. 

If the messages are not next to each other in the list: You can individually click on 

the messages you would like to select. 

 

Hold down the Control key on your keyboard and click on the messages that you 

want to select. If you do this, you won’t deselect a currently selected message 

by clicking on another message. In this way you can build up a group of nonconsecutive 

messages to move into another folder. (On the Apple you will need 

to hold down the Command key, instead). 

You can also use the Message menu to move your mail, if you would prefer this to 

the usual 'drag and drop' method. 

 

Select the messages that you want to move and then go to Message > Move > 

Account Name (Staffmail) > Folder Name 


Saving Messages 

To save any email message as a text file: 

 

 

Open the message. 

Choose Save As > File from the File menu to open a save message dialogue 

box. 

43 


You should now choose to save the file as a text file. In Windows, you do this from 

the drop down menu called Save as type. On the Mac, this drop down menu is 

called Format. 

 

In either case, choose Text Files from the drop down menu. 

Choose a file name, and save your file to a folder on your computer. 

You should be able to open this file with any text editor, or word processor. 


44 


Printing Messages 

To print a message: 

 

 

Open the message that you would like to print. 

Click on the Print button on the main toolbar, or choose Print from the File 

menu. 

A standard print dialogue box will appear. 

 

Use the box to specify the number of copies of the message that you would like, 

then click Print to print the message. 

Remember that, for students in the open-access labs, the printing prepayment 

scheme means that your account will be charged for each printout that you make. 

You may also have to confirm your printout in another dialogue box. Students who 

need more information should see the guides Start Here in the Windows Labs or 

Start Here in the Mac Labs. 

Note: Mail headers will also be printed, so you may find that even a short mail will 

take up more than one page. If you set the header view to Normal rather than All, 

then the headers will be shorter in print, as well as on screen. You can find this 

option from View > Headers > Normal. 


Searching Messages 

You can search through your messages in Thunderbird in different ways. The two 

main ways to search your messages are filtering from the message list, and using 

the more advanced search function. 

Filtering Messages 

The quickest way of searching your messages is to use the filter, which is available 

to the top right of the message list, just below the main toolbar. 

45 


The default filter is by Subject or Sender, which probably covers most of the 

searches that you will do. 

Click inside the search box, and type in your keyword – for example quip 

This will filter out any messages that do not have the word ‘quip’, either in the 

subject of the message, or in the email address (or name) of the person who sent 

the message. You do not have to press return to complete the search, because 

Thunderbird starts filtering from the very first letter that you type, producing results 

on the fly. 

As you can see from the picture, these searches are not case sensitive. 

This search method only filters the contents of your message list – in other words, 

the search filters only one folder at a time, and displays the results in the message 

list. 

In order to show all messages in the message list again, you can either delete all 

of the keyword from the filter search box, or simply click on the cross button that is 

inside the file to empty and reset the filter field. 

You can filter messages in different ways. If you click on the magnifying glass, it 

which produces a drop down list of search types. 


46 


Advanced Search in Thunderbird 

Filtering from the message list allows you to view only one folder at a time. If you 

want to perform a more complete search, you can select the Search Messages 

option. You will find this on the Edit menu, by following the arrow from the word 

Find. 

When the search window appears: 

 

Select a folder from the Search for messages in: drop down list. If you want to 

search all email on the server, including any messages that you have sent which 

are still on the server, then go up a level and choose the name of your mail 

account. 

Keep Search subfolders selected, if you want to do a search that includes any 

folders that are inside your selected folder. 

Now you should decide what you want to use to search your messages. Just like 

with message filtering, you can choose from a variety of search fields. 


47 

The default search is by Subject, but you can search using the From field, the Date, 

the To field, the CC or BCC fields, and others. Advanced users can even add their 

own search type using the Customize... setting. 

For a simple example, we will try finding the email we received from quip@ed.ac.uk 

 

Bring up the From field in the first of the three boxes. 


 

Choose contains from the second box, to search for messages that do contain 

your keyword in the From field of the email. 

 

 

Type quip into the third box. 

Click Search 

Unless you have sent more than one email to the quipper program, you will probably 

receive only one result, because quip is a reasonably uncommon word. However, if 

you receive too many results from a search, you can narrow down your search by 

adding another search term – without discarding your original search results. 

If you click the plus sign next to the box where you typed your search information, 

then a new line will appear, complete with the same three boxes. 

 

 

Choose Subject in the first box. 

Leave contains in the second box. 

Type in a keyword that is part of the subject line of your email. 

You have now done a search for a match in the From and/or the Subject lines of all 

your email. You can keep adding these searches until you get the result that you 

need. 

Note: If you intend to search by more than one keyword then you need to choose 

between Match all of the following and Match any of the following. If you choose 

to match any, then results will be displayed for email in your search area that 


48 


contains any of the search terms. If you choose to match all, then results will only be 

displayed for emails that fulfil all of the search terms. 

You might use Match any of the following if you want a list of all the emails you have 

received from a certain person, but that person has two different email addresses. 

You might choose to use Match all of the following if you are having a hard time 

being specific enough about any particular detail of the email in order to find just the 

one that you are looking for. 

Saving Search Folders 

Search Folders are 'virtual folders' that contain a set of constantly updated search 

results. These can be useful in filtering messages that you don't want to physically 

move out of your inbox, or other folder. For example, you could have all of the 

messages from your tutor, supervisor, or line manager filtered by a search folder 

so that you could find them just by looking in one place - even though the actual 

messages would still be in the same folder as all the rest of your email. 

When you have done a search using the 'advanced' search method described 

above, you may notice that you have the option to Save as Search Folder. 

 

Click Save as Search Folder. 

 

Give this virtual folder a Name 

that will be useful to you. You 

should also check the box to 

Search Online. Then click OK. 

The results of the search terms 

you specified will then, instead of 

appearing in a search results box, appear directly in a folder in your folder list. 

This search will continue to be active until you remove the folder. It is quite safe to 

remove a search folder, since it does not actually contain any messages. Be very 

careful not to remove any of the other folders! 

Search Folders will be 

marked with a magnifying 

glass to distinguish them 

from real folders that 

contain messages. 


Deleting Messages 

If you know that you have no further need for a message, you can delete it. 

The way in which you delete messages differs slightly between the Supported 

Desktop and download versions of Thunderbird. Please refer to the appropriate 

section for information on how your version of Thunderbird works when deleting 

messages. 

49 


Deleting Messages with the Supported Desktop Version of 


With the Supported Desktop version of Thunderbird you will first mark a message for 

deletion, and then actually delete all the messages marked for deletion by using the 

Purge command. This resembles the way in which the web mail (also called IMP) 

works at the University of Edinburgh. 

 

Select the message you want to delete in the message list. 

 

Click on the Delete button on the toolbar 

from the Edit menu. 

or choose to Delete Message 

This will mark the message for deletion by scoring a line through the centre of it. At 

this point, Thunderbird won't remove the message from your message list. 

Note: If the message you want to delete is currently open for reading, you can use 

exactly the same approach to mark the message for deletion. 

In order to permanently remove the message from your account, you will need to 

purge the messages that have been marked for deletion. There is no going back 

from this step, so make sure only to delete messages that you do not need. 

Click on Purge Deleted Messages on the Thunderbird toolbar. 

Deleting Messages with the Download Version of 


Deleting messages with the download version of Thunderbird is more like deleting 

files in Windows. When you choose to delete a message, it is moved to the Trash 

folder. The message is removed completely when you empty your Trash folder, or if 

you have set your Trash folder to empty automatically at certain intervals. 


50 


 

Select the message you want to delete in the message list 

Click on the Delete button 

from the Edit menu. 

on the toolbar, or choose to Delete Message 

If the message you want to delete is currently open for reading, you can use exactly 

the same approach to delete it. This will move your file to the trash folder where it is 

ready for deletion. 

 

You can empty the Trash folder (it may also be called Deleted), by going to 

Thunderbird’s File menu and choosing to Empty Trash (or Empty Deleted). 

Changing the Way you Delete Messages. 

It is possible to change the way in which you delete messages using Thunderbird. 

For example, if you are using the Download version of Thunderbird it is possible to 

mark messages for deletion instead of moving them to the Deleted or Trash folder. 

To change your deletion options: 

 

 

From the Tools menu click Account Settings... 

Choose Server Settings from the pane on the left, in the appropriate account. 

 

Look in the Server Settings part of the dialogue box, and find the drop down 

menu called When I delete a message: 

 

Choose the method of deletion that you want to use from the drop down menu. 

There are three methods available to you. When I delete a message: 

• 

• 

• 

Move it to the Deleted folder 

Mark it as deleted 

Remove it immediately 


Reducing Quota Usage 

With the IMAP service at the University of Edinburgh, you can access mail on 

your server from almost any computer, with a range of different email programs. 

However, if you keep sending and receiving mail, then eventually you will start to run 

out of space on the server. You will need to move some of that mail off the server, 

one way or another, in order to keep some space free. You should be prepared to 

deal with this before you go over quota. 

51 


At the time of writing, the Supported Desktop version of Thunderbird has an 

extension that will show your mail quota in the bottom right of the Thunderbird 

window – so you can see how much of your available space you are taking up. You 

can also check your quota by logging in to the Web mail service. 

This section of the guide will describe how to reduce quota usage. It leads into the 

section on Archiving Mail, in which you can move old mail into local folders to free 

up space on the server. 

Deleting Messages 

Deleting your messages from the server will free up space, but this should not be 

done lightly. You never know when you may be required to refer back to an older 

email, and in some cases there may even be a legal requirement to keep certain 

emails. You can delete mail that you are sure is spam, or that you are certain that 

you will never need again. 

Removing an Attached File 

Emails with attachments take up many, many times as much space on your 

server as emails without attachments. You shouldn’t let your inbox clog up with 

unnecessary email attachments. If you have the attached files saved elsewhere, 

you can safely remove attachments from emails – without even removing the emails 

themselves. 

First, find the emails that have the largest attachments. 

 

Click the Size heading in the Message List to sort by email size. 

Most regular emails will be less than 5Kb in size. Even a small attachment is likely to 

be 100Kb in size, and could be anything up to 10Mb (~10000Kb!)- or the same size 

as two or three thousand normal emails! 

To remove all attachments from an email: 

Select the email in the message list. 


52 


 

 

Follow the Attachments option from the File menu. 

Click Delete All to remove all of the attachments from the email 

or 

 

Click Detach All to save all of the attachments from the email, and then delete 

them. You will be prompted to delete the attachments after you have saved them. 

You can also choose to remove attachments individually from an email by following 

the option for the particular attachment name. In the case of deleting just the 

attachment in the example above: File > Attachments > 1 unagi.jpg > Delete. 

Since this email has only one attachment, this will achieve the same effect as 

choosing to Delete All attachments. 

Moving Mail to a Local Folder 

A ‘local’ folder is a folder which is stored on the hard drive of your computer, rather 

than on your mail server. When you move email from your account on the server to 

a local folder, that email stops taking up space on your server, and takes up space 

on your computer instead. But there are some disadvantages to this approach. Be 

aware that: 

• You won’t be able to access any mails that are stored in a local folder from 

anywhere other than the computer they are stored on. (When they are stored 

on the mail server, you can access them from nearly anywhere with an internet 

connection). 

• Your emails will not be automatically backed up for you, in case of an accidental 

loss of data. You will personally need to make regular backups of your archive, 

or else you risk losing much of your email if the computer is stolen or broken. 

This happens more often than you might think, so be absolutely sure to make 

backups! 

This process is called Archiving. 


Archiving Mail 

When preparing to archive your mail, the first thing that you need to concern yourself 

with is the location of your local folders directory. This is the folder on your computer 

disk that will store the mail that goes into all of your 'local folders' in Thunderbird. No 

matter how many local folders you create inside Thunderbird, they all go into this 

one place so it is quite important to look after it. 

53 


Your local folders directory can be stored in any one of a number of locations on 

your computer. This uncertainty can make it harder to keep proper backups of your 

local folders. It can also lead to problems with your roaming profile, if you choose to 

use default settings. 

Probably the safest thing to do is to define your own local folders directory, and look 

after this yourself, including making appropriate backups. That way you will always 

know where it is, and when it was last backed up. 

Your Local Folders Directory 

Your Local Folders Directory is the folder on the disk of your computer that contains 

all of the mail that you put in the Local Folders area of Thunderbird. 

 

Go to Account Settings, and select Local Folders from the left pane. 

You will find the location of your local folders in the right pane, beneath the heading 

Local directory: 

To change the Local directory:, click the Browse button, on the right of the box. 


54 


Using this dialogue box you can browse to a suitable place for storing your local 

mail, and you can even create new folders with the Make New Folder button. 

You will want to store your local mail in a folder somewhere that you have writeaccess 

to, as well as somewhere that will be reasonably safe. 

If you are using a Supported Desktop computer which has a D: drive on which your 

personal information is usually stored then this is a good location for your local 

folders. Make sure that your D: drive is not a CD or DVD drive, but an actual hard 

disk drive. 

If you do not have a D: drive for storing your personal information, then you should 

create your local folders directory within the Workspace folder on the C:\ drive. 

You should always have access to write to the C:\Workspace folder, whatever your 

account status. 

 

Create and select a suitable folder in which to archive mail, such as 

C:\Workspace\Mail 

 

 

Click OK. 

Close all Thunderbird windows, and restart the Thunderbird program. 

This is so that Thunderbird starts to use the new area. You are now ready to create 

individual Local Folders in Thunderbird - these will all be stored as files in the one 

local folders directory which you just specified. 

Creating Local Folders in Thunderbird. 

You will first need to create at least one local folder to put your mail in. 

 

 

 

 

Right click on Local Folders in the Folder 

List. 

Choose New Folder from the menu that 

appears. 

Give your new folder a name, for example 

Archive. 

Make sure that the Create as a SubFolder 

of: box is set to Local Folders. 

Click OK. 

When you have created a local folder, you 

can move mail into it in the same way that you 

would move mail between folders on the server. 

You can either drag and drop mail directly into 

your new local folder (Archive, in our example), 

or you can use the command menu. 

To use the command menu to move mail to your local folder you can select 

messages in the message list and then use the command from the menu bar 


55 


Messages > Move > Local Folders > Archive. 

You can replace 'Archive' with whatever folder name you want to move your mail 

into, but be aware of the distinction between local folders and folders that are on the 

server, as part of your email account. 

Copy the contents of the Local Folders folder to a DVD±r, CD-r, USB drive or other 

storage space. 

You will then have made a backup of your local folders. 

You should also: 

• Test that the files copied properly and are the same size on your backup version 

as the original version. 

• Keep your backup in a safe place, somewhere other than where you keep your 

computer - in case of fire, or theft. 

• Remember to make a new backup regularly, particularly if you often put more 

mail into your local folders. 

Moving your Local Folders Directory 

If you are already using Local Folders in Thunderbird and you want to keep your 

Local Folders Directory in a different place, you can do this: 

 

 

Use Thunderbird to find the location of your Local Folders Directory 

Copy the contents of your original Local Folders Directory to a new folder. 

 

Change the path for the Local Folders Directory in Thunderbird to reflect this new 

location. 

If you restart Thunderbird, then your local folders should automatically be picked 

up from the new Local Folders Directory. When you are sure this has worked (and 

probably after making a backup as well) you can remove the original Local Folders 

Directory. 


56 


Backing up your Local Folders Directory 

Because Thunderbird stores all of its Local Folders as files in a single Local Folders 

Directory, there is only one folder on your disk that you need to copy to make a 

complete backup of your Local Folders as they appear in Thunderbird. Of course, 

you need to make sure that you copy all of the files in that folder. 

 

Find the Local Folders Directory using the method outlined in the section called 

Your Local Folders Directory. 

 

Find the Local Folders Directory on your computer hard disk using Windows 

Explorer. 

Copy the Local Folder Directory, and all of its contents, to a backup location. 

A good place to backup your mail could be to CD, to a USB Pen Drive, to an 

External USB hard disk drive or even to a network location. You need be sure that 

nobody else can easily access these files, but that they are kept in a physically safe 

location. 

Thunderbird stores its mail in a format called mbox, which is the UNIX standard for 

mail handling. With some tweaking it will be possible to import these files into many 

other mail clients in an emergency - although the process is not necessarily a simple 

one. 

If you have trouble backing up essential mail, please contact your support team - 

without exception they prefer to hear from you before something goes wrong, rather 

than after, when there is often little that can be done. 


Marking Messages 

There are various ways of marking messages in Thunderbird. Labels and Flags are 

both ways of organising mail in your own mailbox. Priority is something that you set 

on an outgoing mail, for the benefit or attention of other users. 

Labels 

In Thunderbird you can allocate labels to mail according to categories. This will 

colour code your Message List. 

57 


There are five predefined categories which each have their own colour. These 

are numbered from 1 to 5, (and Label 0, which is the default state of 'None'). The 

default categories include Important (red), Personal (green), Work (orange), To do 

(blue) and Later (purple). 

To add a label to an email: 

 

Select the email in the message list. 

 

Go to Label on the Message menu. Follow the arrow to see the labels that are 

available. 

 

Click the appropriate label. 

You can also edit the category names, and corresponding colours: 

 

 

Click Options from the 

Tools menu. 

Click the Display button, 

and then the Labels tab. 

You can now edit both the 

names, and the colours, of the 

five categories. 

Note: If you change the name 

and colour of a label, then 

the changes you make will be 

applied to all the existing mail 

with that label. 


58 


Flags 

Message Flags allow you to mark mail for review at a later time 

A Message Flag will appear simply as a flag icon in the Message List. 

You could in practice choose to flag an email for any number of reasons (since the 

Message Flag is simply a marker) but it might make more sense to use labels if you 

are categorising lots of emails differently. Labels are not only more distinctive but 

also more customisable. 

Flags are expected to be used as a quick and easy method of marking out individual 

emails for particular attention. 

To flag a message: 

 

 

 

Click on the Message menu, 

and go down to Mark. 

Follow the arrow from Mark to 

see the ways in which you can 

mark an email message. You 

are looking for Flag. 

Click Flag to add a Message 

Flag to the email. 

Priority 

Priority headers are a method of marking emails for sending between people. They 

are intended to inform the recipient of the importance or urgency of the message. 

You cannot mark a message with priority if you are the recipient. You can only mark 

priority on the message if you are the sender, whilst composing the message. 

For information on how to send prioritised emails, see Sending an Email with a 

Priority Header in Chapter Two. 

Because Priority is not strongly implemented in Thunderbird, you may want High 

Priority emails to be more obviously marked in your message list. 

It is possible to filter incoming mail so that if it has a high or higher priority then it 

is also labelled as important and highlighted in bright red. See the example in the 

Message Filters section of this workbook for details of how to create this filter. 


Marking Mail as Read/Unread 

When mail first arrives it will be marked as unread. In the Message List the mail will 

be highlighted with bold text, and the Read Mail column (with the 'spectacles' picture 

at the top) will have a green blob icon. 

When you have read the message the text will no longer be in bold, and the green 

blob icon will change to a small grey dot. 

59 


However, you can mark an email as read, even if you have not read it, and you can 

mark an email as unread, even if you have already opened it. 

The fast way to do this, is by clicking on the dot (or blob) in the Read Mail column. 

This will toggle between Read and Unread states. 

You can also use the Message menu: 

 

 

 

Select the email in the Message List, and go to the Message menu. 

Go down to Mark and follow the arrow across. 

Click on As Read. 

Note: There is no 'As Unread' command to click on. Clicking As Read toggles 

between Read and Unread states. 

Junk Mail (Spam) 

If a message appears in your inbox which is clearly junk email, then you can mark 

it as junk. When you do this, the message will usually be moved to a Junk E-mail 

folder. (Actual action may vary, depending on your Thunderbird settings). Junk 

messages have a trash can icon in the Junk Mail column. 

Thunderbird has a reasonably intelligent junk mail filter, which learns over time as 

you mark messages as junk, and becomes more accurate at filtering spam, so that it 

doesn't end up in your inbox in the first place. 

To mark a message as junk: 

 

 

Select the email in the Message List, and go to the Message menu. 

Go down to Mark and follow the arrow across. 

Click on As Junk. 

Note: There is also an As Not Junk option on this menu, so that you can correct 

for any email which has been erroneously categorised as junk. You can also click 

on the dot (or trash can) in the Junk Mail column of the Message List to toggle the 

Junk status of an email. 


60 


Message Filters 

You can use Message Filters to divert messages into different locations as they 

arrive, or to apply a new status to them. Some common uses of Message Filters are: 

• 

• 

• 

To divert mail from a certain sender, or from a list, into a dedicated folder. 

To automatically flag or label certain types of message. 

To automatically forward certain messages to another recipient or email address. 

For our example, we will set up a filter which adds an 'Important' label to all High 

or Higher Priority email. The effect of this with Thunderbird's default label settings, 

will be that High or Higher Priority email will stand out in red letters, making it more 

visible. This filter will affect new mail as it arrives, and will not change the labels of 

existing mail in your folders. 

To see the main Message Filters dialogue: 

 

Click Message Filters.. on the Tools menu. 

From this dialogue box you can remove or editing existing filters or create new ones. 

You can also choose to enable or disable existing filters, run specific filters, or view 

your Filter Log. 

We will need to create a new filter, since there are currently no filters in place. The 

interface for setting up new Message Filters is similar to the Search interface, and is 

used in the same way. 

Click New... 


61 

 

 

 

Enter an appropriate name for the filter in the Filter Name box. 

Choose to Match any of the following or Match all of the following, depending 

on what sort of filter you are trying to create. 

Set your filters according to your needs. 

In the example, our filters are set as 


Priority is High 

+ 

Priority is Highest 

We could also have had just one filter doing the same job, if we had chosen: 

Priority 

is higher than Normal 

The important thing is that in either case our filters will activate for any incoming 

messages where the priority is either High or Highest. 

Choose an action to perform if the filter requirements are met. 

This could be marking or labelling the messages that have been filtered, moving 

them to a different place, or even deleting them. In our example, we are choosing to 

label the filtered messages as Important. 

Click OK. 

This new filter is now in the main Message Filters list, and will run as long as the 

Enabled box is ticked. You can now close the Message Filters dialogue, if you have 

no more filters that you would like to add. 


Chapter 4 

Customising 

Thunderbird

Extensions and Themes 

Thunderbird has the ability to work with a range of modular add-ons that bring tools 

and functionality to Thunderbird that is not present in the standard release. These 

add-ons are called extensions. 

This system works very well, since it means the core Thunderbird program can 

remain small, efficient, and focused whilst still allowing for more specific functions to 

be added on demand. 

65 

Customising Thunderbird 

Themes are similar to extensions, in that they are downloadable add-ons. Themes 

change the appearance of Thunderbird, but not necessarily the way it behaves. 

Extensions 

Extensions for Thunderbird have been created which allow you to: 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Quick switch between signatures on the same account. 

Add annotations to emails, similarly to Pegasus Mail. 

Synchronise your contact list with your phone. 

Quick switch between different outgoing mail (SMTP) servers. 

Control your music player from within Thunderbird. 

Compress email attachments to make them take up less space. 

There is even an extension which will add birthday reminders for all the people in 

your address book! 

There are many more extensions besides those listed above. The add-ons page at 

Mozilla shows nearly 400 compatible extensions for Thunderbird, and this number is 

rising all the time because Thunderbird extensions are continuously being developed 

and updated by Thunderbird users. 

To look at the list of extensions for yourself, visit: 

https://addons.mozilla.org/thunderbird/ 

Installing an Extension 

When you find an extension that you want to try, it is usually a simple matter to 

install it, and it should not cause any problems to remove afterwards, if you find that 

it doesn't fit the bill. 

 

Download the extension to a safe place. The file will usually be an .xpi file. 

Bring up the Extensions dialogue by clicking Extensions on the Tools menu. 


66 


You may already have some extensions installed, particularly if you are using the 

Supported Desktop version of Thunderbird. 

 

Click Install and find and select the extension you downloaded. Click Open. 

The extension will probably now warn you that the extension is 'unsigned'. This is 

usually the case for Thunderbird extensions. You shouldn't install the extension 

unless you got it from a reasonably safe place, such as the official mozilla add-ons 

page - and you do install at your own risk. Provided you accept that, continue: 

 

Wait until the Install Now box is available, and then click it. 

The extension will then be installed, but you will have to restart Thunderbird for it to 

take effect. 

Close down all Thunderbird windows, and then open Thunderbird again. 

Your extension should now be installed. This might make an immediate difference 

to Thunderbird - such as adding a new button, or toolbar - or it might require 

some setup. Read the instructions for each individual add-on to be sure of what is 

required. 


67 

The extension that you see being installed in this example adds controls for your 

software music player to a little panel at the bottom of your Thunderbird window. 


Uninstalling an Extension 

If you decide to uninstall an extension: 

 

 

 

Bring up the Extensions dialogue from the Tools menu. 

Select the extension you want to remove. 

Click Uninstall. 

If you are prompted to confirm the removal, click OK. 

When you restart Thunderbird, the extension will have been removed. 

Themes 

Themes are largely an aesthetic modification, although they are installed in much 

the same way as extensions. They are used to alter the look of Thunderbird, which 

can be useful, better coordinated, more pleasing to the eye or just downright ugly 

depending on your personal preferences. Some themes even attempt to recreate 

the look and feel of different mail clients, such as Apple Mail or Outlook. There are a 

large number of Thunderbird themes available from: 

https://addons.mozilla.org/thunderbird/themes/ 


68 


Installing Themes in Thunderbird 

Download the theme(s) you want to install to a safe place. 

Bring up the Themes dialogue by clicking Themes on the Tools menu. 

 

Click Install and find and select the theme you downloaded. Click Open. 

The theme should now be installed. You can install as many themes as you like in 

Thunderbird, but you can only choose to use one at any time. 

Using a Theme 

To use a theme that you have installed in Thunderbird: 

 


Select the theme you want to use and click Use Theme. 

You will need to restart Thunderbird before the new theme will take effect. 


69 


Removing Themes 

When you are ready to remove a theme that you are no longer using: 

 


Select the theme you want to remove and click Uninstall. 

If you Uninstall the theme you are using, then it will not be removed until you restart 

the program, and Thunderbird will revert to the default theme. 


Practical 

Exercises

Practical Exercises 

Information 

This section of the workbook is given over to practical exercises, which you 

should feel free to attempt for practice. 

73 


In the classroom environment you might like to work with someone, so that 

you can send email to each other and verify that what you have done has 

worked. Where possible, the exercises have been set up so that you should 

also be able to perform them on your own. 

You should work at your own speed through these practical exercises, and 

only need attempt those that you feel you would like to practice. The material 

in this workbook varies in technical difficulty, and attempts to cover many of 

the most common email tasks. 

In most cases when you are asked to send an email: 

• You can send it to your own email address. This will let you control what 

you receive, as well as what you send, and will let you see for yourself what 

has or has not worked. 

• You can send it to someone else in the classroom - with their permission 

- so that you and a friend or colleague can cross-check your results. 

• You should avoid sending 'practice' email to people who are not expecting 

it. As well as limiting the amount of feedback you are likely to receive, most 

people are likely to find this irritating! 


74 


Exercise 1: Setting Up Thunderbird 

What you will do 

• Complete the setup of your copy of Thunderbird. 

How you will do it 

• 

• 

• 

You will correctly respond to any dialog boxes that Thunderbird presents the first 

time you open the program. 

You will check what version of Thunderbird is installed. 

You will change the program settings as required, including entering your Mail 

Directory address, if you have one. 

Now you do it 

 

Run Thunderbird for the first time. Choose Start > All Programs > Mozilla 

Thunderbird. (This may not reflect where Thunderbird has been installed on 

your own machine.) 

Windows users will typically find Thunderbird in C:\Program Files\Mozilla 

Thunderbird if there is no icon on the Start Menu or Desktop. 

Remember: 

• 

• 

• 

If prompted, tell Thunderbird not to be your default email program - at least until 

you are certain that you do want to use it as your default mail program! 

Enter your EASE password, whenever you are prompted for a password. 

Make sure Thunderbird uses your most appropriate email address. 

The instructions for how to complete all of these tasks are contained within Chapter 

One. 


Exercise 2: Sending Email 


• Send an email to 'quipper'. 


• 

• 

• 

You will create a mail message, address it properly (to quipper), put in a subject, 

and type some text into the message body. 

Send your message. 

Confirm that quipper has replied. 

75 


Now you do it 

 

Look in this guide to find the email address for 'quipper'. 

 

 

Send an email to quipper. 

Check your email for a reply. 

Remember: 

• It doesn't matter what subject or text you type for this example, but you must type 

the email address correctly. 

• You will know if you have succeeded, if you get a reply - quipper automatically 

replies. 

The instructions for how to complete all of these tasks are contained within the 

Sending Email section of Chapter Two. 


76 


Exercise 3: Sending an Attachment 


• Send an email attachment 


You will prepare an email to be sent in the usual way. You will attach a file to that 

email. You will then send the email. 

You can either send this email to yourself, your tutor, or someone else in the room, 

depending on how your course tutor chooses to run this exercise. It is important to 

send the email to someone who will be able to verify that it has worked correctly. 

If you do not have a file that you would like to send, you can ask your tutor to 

provide one. 

Now you do it 

 

Choose a small file, such as a picture, to send from your computer. 

 

 

 

Prepare an email and address it appropriately. 

Attach your chosen picture/file. 

Send the email. 

Get the recipient to check that your email arrived successfully. 


Attachments section of Chapter Two. 


Exercise 4: Finding an Email Address 


• Find a name in the mail directory 


You will use either the Search Addresses function of the Supported Desktop 

version of Thunderbird, or the online web search, to look up an email address. 

77 


If in doubt, try searching for your tutor's email address. You could also try searching 

for your own address - if you can't find it, you may want to add yourself to the mail 

directory! 

Now you do it 

 

Check which version of Thunderbird you have, if you have not already done this. 

If you have the Supported Desktop version of Thunderbird 

 

Search eddir, using the tools found from the Edit > Find > Search Addresses... 

menu 

If you have the download version of Thunderbird 

 

Go to the University of Edinburgh's main Search page on the web. Use the tools 

available here to complete your search. 


Searching for Email Addresses section of Chapter Two. 


78 


Exercise 5: Create a Mail Folder 


• Create a new mail folder and move one of your messages into it. 


You will create a folder on the mail server, and name it appropriately. You will move 

an email message into your new folder. 

It is suggested that you use either the reply that quipper sent you in the earlier 

exercise, or an email you have received as part of this course to experiment with 

moving email between different folders. This is just so that you don't accidentally 

lose any important work-related emails! 

Now you do it 

 

Create a new folder in the correct way, and give it a name. 

 

Drag a message into your new folder. 

Remember: 

• For this exercise, create your new folder on the server - inside your staffmail 

account - don't create a local folder. 

• You are using your own email account, so remember that you will need to 

remove this folder before the end of the course if you do not want this folder to be 

present whenever you read your mail. 

The instructions for how to complete all of these tasks are contained within the Filing 

Messages section of Chapter Three. 


Exercise 6: Find an Email Message 


• Search and find an email message 


You will search through your messages on the server to find a particular message by 

keyword. You can use either the filter from the toolbar, or the more advanced search 

function. 

79 


Now you do it 

 

Decide which message you will search for. 

For this example, you should search for a message that you already know is in your 

Inbox or other folders. 

Perhaps, if you have not already deleted it, you could try searching for the booking 

confirmation email or the reminder email regarding this course. You could also 

search for any messages that you have received during the course. Otherwise, you 

can simply choose any other email in your inbox. 

You will need to know either the sender or the subject of the email, so that you can 

pick appropriate keywords for either the filter or the search function. When you have 

this information: 

 

Filter the email in your message list, by using appropriate keyword(s). 

OR 

Use the Search function from Edit > Find > Search Messages... 


Searching Messages section of Chapter Three. 


80 


Exercise 7: Delete an Email Message 


• Delete an email message, using the method appropriate to your version of 



You will identify your version of Thunderbird, choose an email to delete, and delete 

that email appropriately to your version of Thunderbird. 

You must be very careful only to delete emails that you have finished with, and do 

not expect to need again. When you have completely deleted an email it will not be 

possible to retrieve it again. 

Now you do it 

 

Identify your version of Thunderbird. Information on how to do this is contained in 

Chapter One of this workbook. 

If you have the Supported Desktop version of Thunderbird: 

 

 

Select the email that you want to delete in your message view, and click Delete. 

Click Purge Deleted Messages to completely remove your deleted messages. 

If you have the download version of Thunderbird: 

 

 

Select the email that you want to delete in your message view, and click Delete. 

Empty your Trash folder to completely remove all deleted messages. 

The instructions for how to complete all of these tasks, unless otherwise stated, are 

contained within the Deleting Messages section of Chapter Three. 


Exercise 8: Create a Signature File 


• 

• 

Create a text file. 

Set Thunderbird to use this file as your signature. 

81 



You will use a text editor, such as Notepad, to create a plain text file with your 

signature design. 

You will then use the Account Settings... dialogue to load this signature file into 

your University email account in Thunderbird. 

Check that your signature is included when you Write a new message. 

Now you do it 

 

 

Open a text editor. In Windows, for example, you could use Notepad. ( Start > 

Run then type Notepad and hit Return). 

Create your signature in your text editor. If you already have a signature, you can 

copy and paste it into place from another location. 

 

 

Save the file in a safe place - as a plain text file. 

In Thunderbird, go to Tools > Account Settings… 

 

Make sure that your Staffmail or SMS mail account is selected in the left panel by 

its main parent folder, and then check the Attach this signature: box in the right 

panel. 

 

 

Click Choose, then locate and select the text file you saved. Click Open. 

Click OK to accept the new settings. 

 

Check that this has worked by starting to compose a new message. Click Write, 

and your new message window should appear, with the signature already 

included at the bottom of the message. 


contained within the Creating a Signature section of Chapter Two. 


82 


Exercise 9: Save a Message 


• Save an email message as a text file using Thunderbird 


Find an email message that you would like to save. 

Save the message to your computer, or in your Documents folder. 

Check that the message has been saved correctly. 

Now you do it 

 

 

Open the message. 

Choose Save As > File from the File menu to open a save message dialogue 

box. 

 

 

Save the type as Text Files from the drop down menu. 

Choose a file name, and save your file to a folder on your computer. 

 

Open your file in a text editor (like Notepad), to make sure that it has saved 

correctly. 


contained within the Saving Messages section of Chapter Three. 


Exercise 10: Print a Message 


• Print an email message using the default printer. 


Find an email message that you would like to print. 

83 


Print the message to the default printer (in a classroom) or to your own printer if you 

are practicing this at home. 

Check that the message has printed correctly. 

Now you do it 

 

 

 

Open the message that you would like to print. 

Click on the Print button on the main toolbar, or choose Print from the File 

menu. 

Use the box to specify the number of copies of the message that you would like, 

then click Print to print the message. 


contained within the Printing Messages section of Chapter Three. 


84 


Exercise 11: Find your Local Folders 


• Find where the Local Folders are stored on your computer. 


Use the Account Settings... dialogue to find the Local directory: information. 

Open the folder in Windows Explorer (or Finder, on a Mac). 

Optional: make a backup of this folder. 

Note: If you are in a classroom, this will not back up any of the local folders on your 

own machine, and will only save the folders on the training machine. This is just for 

practice! 

Now you do it 

 

 

Go to Account Settings, and select Local Folders. 

Find the location of your local folders in the right pane, beneath the heading 

Local directory: 

 

Find this folder on your computer. 

Note: A quick way of getting to the location of your local folder in Windows Explorer, 

is to double click on the folder location listed under the Local directory: heading, 

and then press CTRL + C. This should select the full text of the folder address, and 

then copy the it to the clipboard. 

Then, in Windows Explorer you can select the address bar and copy the full address 

into place (using CTRL + V). Press Enter, and you should be taken directly to the 

folder. 

 

Optional: Copy the contents of the Local Folders folder to a DVD±r, CD-r, USB 

drive or other storage space. 


contained within the Backing Up your Local Mail Profile section of Chapter Three. 


Exercise 12: Use an Extension or Theme 


• Find an extension that you are interested in, or a theme that appeals to you. 


Download the file to your computer 

85 


Install it with Thunderbird 

Restart Thunderbird and make sure it is working. 

Now you do it (Extensions) 

 

 

Download the extension to a safe place. The file will usually be an .xpi file. 

Bring up the Extensions dialogue by clicking Extensions on the Tools menu. 

You may already have some extensions installed, particularly if you are using the 

Supported Desktop version of Thunderbird. 

 

Click Install and find and select the extension you downloaded. Click Open. 

The extension will probably now warn you that the extension is 'unsigned'. This is 

usually the case for Thunderbird extensions. You shouldn't install the extension 

unless you got it from a reasonably safe place, such as the official mozilla add-ons 

page - and you do install at your own risk. Provided you accept that, continue: 

 

Wait until the Install Now box is available, and then click it. 

The extension will then be installed, but you will have to restart Thunderbird for it to 

take effect. 

 

Close down all Thunderbird windows, and then open Thunderbird again. 

Your extension should now be installed. This might make an immediate difference 

to Thunderbird - such as adding a new button, or toolbar - or it might require 

some setup. Read the instructions for each individual add-on to be sure of what is 

required. 

Note: This extension will only be installed on the computer that you have installed it 

to, and will not be installed for any other versions of Thunderbird that you use. If you 

want to use this extension on your own machine then you will need to install it again, 

in the same way. 

Now you do it (Themes) 

Download the theme(s) you want to install to a safe place. 

 


Click Install and find and select the theme you downloaded. Click Open. 

The theme should now be installed. You can install as many themes as you like in 


86 


Thunderbird, but you can only choose to use one at any time. 

To use a theme that you have installed in Thunderbird: 


Select the theme you want to use and click Use Theme. 

You will need to restart Thunderbird before the new theme will take effect. 


contained within the Extensions and Themes sections of Chapter Four. 


Exercise 13: Mark a Message 


• Mark a message in your account as Important, or with a Flag. 


Select a message that you would like to mark. 

87 


Use the menus or the column header to add an appropriate mark to your message. 

You could even choose to mark the message as junk - as long as you are sure that it 

is a junk email. 

Now you do it 

 

Select the message you wish to mark in the Message List. 

 

Click Message on the main menu, and then follow Mark until you can click Flag. 

This will Flag your message. 

OR 

 

Click Message on the main menu, and then follow Label until you can click 

Important. 

This will mark your message as Important. 


contained within the Marking Messages section of Chapter Three. 


88 


Exercise 14: Create a Message Filter 


• 

• 

Create a Filter in your account that will label messages as Later. 

You should filter only low or lowest priority messages that arrive in your inbox in 

this way. 


Create a filter which will label all message that have Low or Lowest priority headers 

as Later. 

Enable this filter. 

Send yourself an email with a low or lower priority to test the filter. 

Verify that this message is automatically labelled as Later. 

Now you do it 

 

Click Message Filters.. on the Tools menu. 

 

 

Click New... 

Enter an appropriate name for the filter in the Filter Name box. 

 

Choose to Match any of the following or Match all of the following, depending 

on what sort of filter you are trying to create. 

 

Set your filters. In this exercise, our filters should be set as 

Priority is Low 

+ 

Priority is Lowest 

Or we could also have just one filter doing the job, if we choose: 

Priority is lower than Normal 

 

Choose to Label as Later if the filter requirements are met. 

Click OK. 

This new filter is now in the main Message Filters list, and will run as long as the 

Enabled box is ticked. You can now close the Message Filters dialogue. 


contained within the Message Filtering section of Chapter Three. 


89 



Appendix

Sending Email from Home 

You can collect and read your email from all over the world using Thunderbird and 

your University of Edinburgh email account. However, if you are using the standard 

settings in this guide, it is not possible to send email from a computer which is 

not a part of the Edinburgh University computer network unless you make some 

extra changes. This is because, to prevent abuse of the outgoing mail servers, 

the machines which deal with sending mail are not accessible from outside of the 

University’s network. 

93 

Appendices 

This affects what Thunderbird refers to as the Outgoing Server (SMTP). 

SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transport Protocol, which is the way that emails are 

usually sent. 

Using Your ISP’s Outgoing Mail Server 

If you plan to use Thunderbird at home, then you should be able to use your Internet 

Service Provider’s SMTP (outgoing mail) server instead of the one provided by 

Edinburgh University. 

Note: ResNet users can use the University’s mail servers and do not need to 

change from the standard settings in this guide in order to be able to send mail. 

When you send an email you will send it through your ISP’s outgoing mail server, 

but you will still receive replies to your Edinburgh University email address – in the 

same way that you can post a letter from different postboxes, even though you will 

only receive replies, and other mail, at your own registered address. 

You need to find out from your Internet Service Provider the address of their SMTP 

server. 

This will usually be something like smtp.blueyonder.co.uk or mail.btinternet.com 

Most ISPs will have a web page that displays this information. You can try searching 

their website for ‘smtp server’, reading their FAQ pages, or calling their technical 

support helpline. 

When you know the internet address of your ISP’s SMTP server, setting up 

a working connection should be as simple as entering alternative details in 

Thunderbird’s Outgoing Settings box 

 

 

Start Thunderbird 

Click on the Tools menu 

Select Account Settings... 


94 

Appendices 

 

Select Outgoing Server (SMTP) from the menu on the left. 

 

Click on Add 

 

Enter the address of your ISP’s SMTP server in the Server Name box. (You can 

leave the Description box blank). 

 

Untick the Use name and password box and select No from the Use secure 

connection menu. 


Click on OK.

95 

 

Select the new server that you have just added to the list and click Set Default to 

make this the main SMTP server. 

Appendices 

Click OK. 


Index 

A 

Account Wizard 8,12 

Address Book 36 

Archiving 33,51 

Attachment 27,31-33 

B 

Backing Up 55,84,87,88 

BCC 28 

Body 5,22,24,26,33 

C 

CC 28 

D 

Deleting Messages 49 

E 

Electronic Mail 

advantages 3 

what it is 3 

Email Address 5,8,9 

Email Directory 36 

Expunge 12 

Extensions 6,65,67,85,86 

F 

Flag 58 

Folder List 14 

G 

Get Mail 21 

H 

Header 5,22,23,28 

HTML 30 

I 

IMAP 3,4,9,14 

Internet 3 

L 

Label 57 

LAN 3 

Local Folders Directory 55 

M 

Mail Directory 8,9 

Mailing List 28 

Mail Server 41 

IMAP 3,4,9,14 

Incoming Server 10 

Outgoing Server 10,12 

SMTP 93,94,95 

mbox 56 

Message List 15,16,22,26,27,32,33 

Move 41 

move messages as a group 42 

N 

Network 3 

P 

Preview Pane 14,16 

Print 44,83 

Priority 58 

Purge 49 

Q 

Quota 51 

Quoting 26 

R 

Reply 26 

S 

Saving Messages 43 

Search 34,35,36,45,46,47,48 

Filter 45 

Search Addresses 34 

Sending Email 

Sending Email from Home 93 

Signature 37 

Smileys 30 

SSL 12 

Subject 5 

Subject 22,24,26,27 

Supported Desktop 5-8 

T 

Themes 65-69,85,86 

To: field 24,26,27,28 

Toolbar 22,24,26,27,31,36 

W 

Write 24,35 

97 

Index 


98 

Feedback 

Feedback 

Please let us know if there is anything in this document which you didn’t find clear, or 

which we have omitted, so that we may improve future editions. Please send your 

comments (on a photocopy of this page if you like) to: 

Communication and Training Services, 

Edinburgh University, 

19 Buccleuch Place 

Edinburgh EH8 9LN 

or by email to: matt.beilby@ed.ac.uk 

Document: Email with Thunderbird 

Edition: 4, March 2007 

Your name and address: 

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