University Computer Help Desk

Checking email in Thunderbird

Check your university email account with Thunderbird.

To check your university email account using Thunderbird,do the following:

  1. Open Thunderbird and click on the Get Mail icon.
  2. Enter your password when prompted.
  3. New messages will be received and downloaded to your Inbox.
  4. Open your Inbox to view your email.

Off-campus users: To check email from off campus, you need to first establish a VPN connection using either the Cisco VPN Client or Network Connect in WebVPN. After you are connected through VPN, you can check and send email using Thunderbird. If you check email primarily from off campus, you can configure Thunderbird to use MailVPN settings instead. This allows you to check and send email without the need for an independent VPN connection.

Here are a few tips:

  • Unread messages appear in bold.
  • Click once on an email message to view its contents in the preview pane.
  • Double-click on an email message to read it in a new window.
  • Click a column header to sort your messages (for example, click the top of the Sender column to sort your messages alphabetically by sender).
  • Use the search box in the upper-right (above the message list) to quickly locate an email message. Type all or part the subject or sender in the box and hit Enter. This is useful when working with large mailboxes if you want to find a message from a particular person or with a certain subject.
  • The lower-left portion of the Thunderbird window displays useful information, including the number of messages being downloaded.

Article Information

  • Article ID: 1011
  • Last Review: Oct 21, 2009
  • Type: Instructions

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