Better Gmail Imap with Thunderbird 2

4 Dec, 2008 Gmail, Google, KDE4, Mozilla, Thunderbird

I have been using Gmail since the day it was launched and I have always loved it for the plethora of features it provides to the users.In the beginnning Gmail supported only POP and using it with thunderbird on a slow connection was very painful . Thunderbird is an awesome product which is more like an underdog in the software market since people think Outlook is the best.Well many of those who dont think that way still end up using outlook Express as it is provided with Windows as the default mail client.But with the huge growth of Web 2.0 , mail clients are slowly becoming obsolete as web services like Gmail require very little configuration and are faster. I encourage people to use Thunderbird as it brings email to their desktops making E-mail a part of the OS rather than just a browser bookmark and yes its Free Software.Thunderbird is more than just a mail client with all the addons that are available now.Recently(about a year back) Gmail launched IMAP support and again I started using thunderbird more than ever. Still configuring Gmail account,importing contacts seemed to take a lot of time which was very irritating especially for a person like me as I format my PC a lot of times (I don’t use XP, I’m more of a distro hopper ) .A few days back I found some awesome addons for thunderbird 2 to make Gmail’s Imap config a 3 step process.

Better Gmail Imap with Thunderbird 2

Step 1

Download and Install thunderbird

Fedora : sudo yum install thunderbird

Ubuntu : sudo apt-get install thunderbird

Windows & Mac : Download from here

Step 2

Gmail IMAP account setup

Enable IMAP in Gmail first (instructions)

Download and install the “Gmail Imap Account Setup” Addon from here

Now go to Edit > Preferences > Account Settings > Add Account

And now there will be an extra option to configure gmail imap as shown in the screenshot below.Select it , Click Next ,Enter your name and Email Address and voila you’re done ! gmailimap

Step 3

Import & Sync Gmail Contacts

I found Zindus as the best for syncing gmail contacts with thunderbird

Download and install the Zindus addon from here

Now go to Tools > Addons > Zindus > Preferences > Add Gmail ID and password

Enable Verbose Logging

Enable Auto Sync if you want

Click ‘Sync Now’ and then you’ll find that all your Gmail contacts have been synced with Gmail.Its a 2 way sync so even if you add a contact locally in your Thunderbird Address book it will sync that contact with your Gmail account.Cool!

Done !

So adding 3-4 Gmail Imap accounts becomes very easy with these 2 addons because it eliminates the time wasted on configuring Thunderbird and exporting then again importing all the contacts which takes a lot of time and is boring too .I have tried the above addons on Linux and they work fine so I tacitly assume that the addons will work on Windows and Mac as well.

Further tips:

For people who have a slow connection and a lot of Gmail Labels (folders actually) , fetching takes a lot of time , to avoid that use a Gmail Labs addon called Advanced Imap Controls and check only those labels which are required for regular use.

Better ThunderBird with KDE4

I have mentioned in my previous post about making Firefox look better in KDE4, now its time to do the same with Thunderbird.As far as I know there is no Oxygen theme for thunderbird yet but I found one theme which makes Thunderbird almost flawless and classy in KDE4.Follow step 1 of the earlier post.Then …

Download and Install the theme ACE Cutebird Graphite from here .

Apply the theme & restart thunderbird.

Now Go to Tools > Addons > Themes > Right Click > About Cutebird >

cutebird

Select options Milk in Extreme Ways and Bigger Font (if required)

The CuteBird theme integrates very well with KDE 4 it looks more like mac though but I ain’t complainin’ . No actual screenshots but the screenshot used above for explaining Step 2 was taken on KDE 4.1 with Cutebird Graphite.

For Testers the alpha version(called Shredder) of Thunderbird 3 has an option for configuring a Gmail IMAP account.Can’t wait for thunderbird 3 to be released !.Comment along if you have more tips on thunderbird-gmail integration.

Reclaim Your Inbox !

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