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HOWTO Documents > Zimbra > Configuring Thunderbird to use Zimbra at CCIS

This document describes how to configure Thunderbird to use the Zimbra services at the Northeastern University College of Computer and Information Science. To learn what Zimbra is or why you might want to use it, see our Zimbra page. For more information on how to use Thunderbird with Zimbra (and other IMAP servers), please see the Mozilla Thunderbird Help Page.

Configuration Steps

These steps describe how to configure Microsoft Windows XP to use Thunderbird (Note: This will probably work in other versions of Windows as well but I can't confirm that).

1.	Start Thunderbird.
2.	Choose Account Settings under the Tools menu.
3.	Click the Add Account button at the bottom of the left side of the settings window. Select Email Account and click [Next].
	Set the following options: • Your Name: Your name as you would like it to appear on outgoing mail • Email Address: username@ccs.neu.edu . Click [Next]. • Set the type of incoming server to IMAP • Set the name of the Incoming Server as zimbra.ccs.neu.edu and click [Next]. • Set the Incoming User Name to your CCIS username and click [Next]. • Set your Account Name to your CCIS email address and click [Next]. • Click [Finish] to Continue.
4.	Select the Outgoing Server item at the bottom of the left menu, and click add (if the server does not already exist). Set the outgoing server options to: Server Name: zimbra.ccs.neu.edu Port: 465 Use name and password: Checked Username: username Use secure connection: SSL Click [OK].
5.	Select the account you created, and set the outgoing server to the server you just created:
6.	On the Server Settings item underneath the account you created in the left menu, set the following: Port: 993 Use secure connection: SSL Check for new messages at startup: Checked
7.	Click the Advanced button and set the following: Show only subscribed folders: Unchecked Personal namespace: "" Public (shared): "" Other Users: "" Allow server to override these namespaces: Unchecked Click [OK].
8.	Click [OK] to save your settings and go back to the main Thunderbird window. You are done with the setup!
9.	Advanced Tip: If you are using Zimbra filtering to put mail into other folders besides your INBOX, there is a Thunderbird option that you can set to force Thunderbird to check all of your folders for new mail. Open up Tools > Options, click on the Advanced tab, and click [Config Editor]. Navigate to the option [mail.check_all_imap_folders_for_new] and double click it to set it to True. Close the Window and click [OK].

IMAP with Thunderbird Tip:

When you delete messages in Mozilla Thunderbird (and most IMAP mail programs), the messages are just flagged as deleted but aren't really removed from the server. Thunderbird indicates this by moving all deleted mail to the Trash folder. To actually delete the message off the server, right click the trash folder and select Empty Trash from the popup menu.

If you have issues with the configuration steps presented in this document that can not be resolved using other means, please send mail to systems@ccs.neu.edu with as much information as possible about your problem. We will do what we can to help you resolve the problem, but please note: CCIS Systems does not have the resources to support non-CCIS machines, so we may have to refer you to other forms of support.