Switching from OE to Thunderbird

Hi,
after sitting on this for a long while and exploring different email programs, I've finally decided to take the plunge and switch from OE to Thunderbird.

Any pointers, tips, suggestions, favorite addons and tweaks and web references (particularly appreciated would be a how-to guide about this particular switch) are greatly welcome!

Thanks

 

Re: Switching form OE to Thunderbird

I have had it a few weeks and really like it so far. I have been told to be sure and go to Tools/Options/Advanced/Network & Disk Space/check mark- Disk Space- "Compact folders when it will save over [ ] KB. I have 250 in my box. Lightning and Thunderbrowse are nice little add-ons.

 

Re: Switching form OE to Thunderbird

Thanks, it's a good suggestion

 

Re: Switching form OE to Thunderbird

I switched from a POP3 server to the free IMAP.aol.com server. (email gets forwarded to aol.com, so I didn't need to change my email address to make it work)
The nature of IMAP is that messages and folders are kept on the server, as opposed to in the client. The advantage is that I can use any email client (Outlook Express, Thunderbird, Eudora, etc) that supports IMAP in any operating system and I never have to worry about importing messages from one email client to another email client.
You can simply switch back to Outlook Express in the future, for any reason.

Also, all your email will always be available when you check anywhere else (library, internet café)

It's quite easy to upload all your existing messages from Outlook Express into your new account at imap.aol.com.

 

Re: Switching form OE to Thunderbird

@Wilbertnl,

Could you elaborate a little more on this. Sounds interesting to me. What I mean is, if my email address now is Joe@somewhere.com, how would I go about establishing this IMAP.aol.com account and would I continue to use that same email address? Thanks.

Gary

 

Re: Switching form OE to Thunderbird

I have an account at @yahoo.com and I use the available forward service from the mail server to send all messages to my @aol.com account.
There is not much more to it, and yes, I publish my @yahoo.com account as my only email account.
In any email client (Outlook Express, Thunderbird) I setup @yahoo.com as sender, it doesn't matter that I use imap.aol.com as server and login with the aol account information.

If you don't have a forward service, then you could setup a gmail account. Gmail is able to poll pop3 servers and forward it to imap.aol.com.
The nice thing of this construction is that you add the gmail spam filter to the process...

 

good move

and remember what surf rock band The Trashmen said way back in '63 .......... "The birds the word" , rather prescient of them one might say

 

So far I like it, it's fast, intuitive, I like the GUI. After a few days of use I will explore the world of addons.
I have already a question, though: does any TB user know how to set a specific folder so that all emails that I put into it (incoming, already read) get switched back to unread? The purpose of this is to to have it display how many emails are inside the specific folder.

thanks

 

I was gonna suggest using the "Mark" function, but taking another look at my TBird you can only change unread to read, not the other way around.

And I'm not aware of any way to have a folder automatically make that change (in either direction), sorry.

 

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