The first step is to set up a mail account in Thunderbird..

(a).Click on Tools > Account Settings.

(b).Click on Add Account to create a new one.

(c).Choose the type of account you want.(Email account in this case).

(d).Click Next.

(e).Enter your name and the exact email address provided to you by your mail provider and click Next.

(f).Choose from a POP3 or IMAP server. IMAP requires you to be online while you are going through your mail as it only downloads header by default. POP3 will download all the mail locally. Enter the mail server address and click Next.

(g).Now enter the user name for your mail account and click Next.

(h).Finally give a name to the mail account you have provided. Proceed and complete the account creation process.

To send an email in Thunderbird:-

(a). Click on Write Button and a new window will appear.

(b). Select the email account you want to send email from dropdown box.

(c). Enter the recipient's name, the subject and then the main body of the mail.

(d). The formatting tools for the mail are available in the toolbar right under the subject input line.

(e). To attach any file to the mail click on the Attach button on the toolbar and choose a file or web page.

(f). Clicking on Save>Draft will save the mail into the draft folder for later use.

(g). Click on "send" to send the mail.

How to setup your Gmail account in Thunderbird.

Thunderbird can be used to download and send mail through your Gmail account.

(a). First, POP3 or IMAP needs to be enabled from your Gmail account

(b). Login to Gmail, then go to settings. Click on Forwarding and POP/IMAP. Choose to enable POP or IMAP.

(c). Create a new account. Finally, modify the account settings to set Google's server information.

When you have multiple accounts, you can check mail from all accounts simultaneously by clicking on the Get Mail button on the toolbar.

If you click the arrow on the Get mail button, you can select the mail service you want to retrieve mails from

Thunderbird like other email clients has an address book features that stores your list of contacts so you don't have to go looking for an email address.

Add Contacts:-

(a). Click on new card button to add a new contact.

(b). Enter the information you have for your contact and click on OK to save it.

Insert contacts from address book to email.

(1). Start typing the first few characters of the name (to write a mail)

and thunderbird will auto-complete the nickname for you.

(2). The other way to send email to the people in your contact list is to click on the address book first and then right click on the nickname & click on write.

How to filter and sort out mails into seperate folders.

The filtering features in Thumbnails can be activated by clicking on Tools> Message Filters.

(a). Choose the mail service you want to filter.

(b). Click on New.

(c). Choose the keywords and parameters you want Thunderbird to check before filtering the mails.

(d). Based on parameters selected, the filtered mail could be copied into another folder, deleted or even forwarded into another account.

(e). Click OK once you are done with Settings.

(f). You can choose filters on any of the present folders in your mail box using dropdown menu at the bottom of the window.

(g). Click on the Run Now to run the filters...