Thunderbird tip: Multiple accounts when you want to use POP instead of IMAP

[HopeHoops]

I recently installed Thunderbird 3.0.4 and set up a bunch of new e-mail accounts. There's a bit of a pain in the ass involved if you use a POP server instead of an IMAP server. I didn't encounter this with older versions.

After you enter your name (text), e-mail account ([e-mail]) and password, you go to a screen to set up your incoming and outgoing servers. The default incoming server is IMAP. If you want to use POP, you have to select it from the drop-down (and change your port number from the IMAP default of 143). This isn't exactly easy.

Immediately upon getting that window, you have to hit the "Stop" button to the right of the "Username field (second outlined box). It will change to "Re-test Configuration". On a fast machine, it may decide that it is happy with everything as it is and not let you change it! You can try, but it will reset your changes to whatever it had to begin with within a second or so. If you go on from there, the only way to switch from IMAP to POP is to delete the account and start over.

If you aren't quick enough to hit the "Stop" button, you will know. It will put a green dot to the left of the "Incoming" box. I found a simple way to deal with this. Click "Re-test Configuration" and IMMEDIATELY click the "Stop" button that replaces it. It will go back to "Re-test Configuration" but without the green dot. Make your changes to the Username, Incoming, Outgoing and port fields for incoming and change the drop-down to "POP". Then hit "Re-test Configuration". It should give you an orange dot to the left of "Incoming" (at least with no connection security - it might be green otherwise - I don't use it so I don't know) and then you are good to go by hitting "Create Account".

This is a MAJOR pain in the ass, but fortunately it has a simple work-around. It took me a while, but I found it. I'll gripe at Mozilla about it tomorrow.

[canetoad]

1. Have a gripe for me too

Few weeks back, setting up Thunderbird 3 on the bosses new laptop I had exactly the same problem - noticed it when we started up Mailwasher to filter the spam.

It's definitely not intuitive to have IMAP as the default email setup and pretty much like you, I figured it out through trial and error.

[HopeHoops]

2. Yeah, if you e-mail them (as I'm going to), be sure to mention that there's no DEFAULT setting.

I've been through the options and looked for it on the Internet and I couldn't find any way to tell Thunderbird to use POP as the default. That should be a disturbingly simple thing to include somewhere.

[RoyGBiv]

3. Huh ...

I sat here and tried to figure out what on earth you were talking about because I thought I had never experienced this.

Then I realized I had, when I set up Thunderbird on a USB PortableApps stick I use at work. IMAP happened to be what I wanted there, and I was just so shocked it worked right out of the gate that I didn't question it. IMAP support with Thunderbird used to be a hit or miss proposition, mostly miss.

I have never experienced this at home 'cause on my Linux installations, I just plop my Thunderbird profile folder into each new installation, so it comes pre-configured when I start Thunderbird the first time.

Anyways, I tried a brand new profile just now, and, yes, this is annoying. Quite annoying.