Thunderbird Configuration for IMAPS and SMTP

Email Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples

∟Mozilla Thunderbird - Mail User Agents (MUA)

∟Thunderbird Configuration for IMAPS and SMTP

This section provides a tutorial example on how to configure Thunderbird to use IMAPS (IMAP over SSL) with normal password for incoming emails and SMTP with no authentication for outgoing emails.

If your mail server supports IMAPS (IMAP over SSL/TLS), you can also configure Thunderbird to use IMAPS for incoming emails.

For example, my email server, running Postfix and Dovecot, supports the following:

SMTP service on port 25, with STARTTLS (Opportunistic TLS) and no authentication.
IMAPS service on port 993, with SSL/TLS and normal username/password authentication.
Email server address is 192.168.1.100.
Email address is herong@herongyang.com.
Username and password associated with the email address: herong and TopSecret.

So here is what I did to configure Thunderbird with above server settings.

1. On my email server, make sure that Postfix and Dovecot are listening on those ports. Note that POP3 with SSL/TLS is also called POP3S.

herong$ nmap -T4 192.168.1.100

PORT     STATE SERVICE
25/tcp   open  smtp
993/tcp  open  imaps

2. On my email server, make sure that the firewall is open for those ports.

herong$ sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --list-all

public (active)
  services: cockpit dhcpv6-client http imaps pop3s smtp ssh

3. Now launch Thunderbird on my local computer.

4. Open "Set Up Your Existing Email Account" dialog box, by clicking "File > New > Existing Email Account".

5. Enter your name, email address and password.

6. Click "Configure manually". You see more settings.

7. Enter the following:

INCOMING:
  Protocol:       IMAP
  Server:         192.168.1.100
  Port:           993
  SSL:            SSL/TLS
  Authentication: Normal password
  Username:       herong

OUTGOING:
  Protocol:       SMTP
  Server:         192.168.1.100
  Port:           25
  SSL:            STARTTLS
  Authentication: No authentication
  Username:

8. Click "Re-test". Thunderbird will try to reach the email server and do some connection tests.

9. If the test is passed, click "Done" to save settings.

10. If you see the "Thunderbird failed to find the settings for your email account" warning, ignore it. And click "Advanced config" to save settings.

Configuration is done. You should be able to receive and send emails now. Remember to override security exceptions caused by the self-signed server certificate.