jaredharley.com | Blog

Google recently (and finally!) opened IMAP access for Gmail accounts. IMAP allows two-way synchronization between your email client and server - this means when you read a message in Outlook or Thunderbird, it shows up read online or in any other client you use to check your email. No more having to download messages to each computer you use and marking emails read everywhere!

As an avid Firefox user, I've always wanted to use Mozilla's Thunderbird, but it never worked enough like Gmail to make it worth it. After playing with it for the last two days, I've definitely decided it's worth it! Thankfully, setting up IMAP in Thunderbird is pretty easy, especially using Gmail's instructions.

A few changes need to be made to Thunderbird, however, so that it acts more like Gmail. Once your account is set up following the instructions linked above, go into Thunderbird and right-click on the name you gave your new account (I chose "Gmail") and choose properties.
The first thing we want to do is map the "drafts" and "sent mail" to the proper Gmail folders.

• Choose "Copies & Folders"
• In the first section, "When sending messages, automatically:"
  
• Checkmark "Place a copy in"
  
• Choose "other"
• In the pull-down menu, mouse over "Gmail" and you'll see a list of your Gmail labels. I have an option labeled [Gmail] that contains all of the special Gmail tags like Sent Items and Drafts. In this case, choose "Sent Mail".
• In the section section, "Drafts and Templates":
• Under "Keep message drafts in:"
• Choose "other"
• Using the same method as above, choose "Drafts".

Now, the one other folder that I wanted to remap was the "Trash" folder in Thunderbird. I don't delete emails from Gmail very often, but I do archive almost everything. Moving a message in Thunderbird to the "All Mail" folder will effectively archive the email. I had to search a little before finding how to make the "Delete" button in Thunderbird archive the email - it involves mapping the Trash folder to another location. I used these instructions:

• Make a backup copy of your prefs.js file.
• Completely exit Thunderbird. You really need to do this - I use the the MinimizeToTray add-on, so I forgot to exit it there, and my first try didn't work.
• Take a look at your prefs.js file (edit in Notepad) and figure out what the server number is for Gmail - mine was "server2"
• Add the following line to your prefs.js file:
• user_pref("mail.server.server2.trash_folder_name", "imap://username%40gmail.com@imap.gmail.com/[Gmail]/All Mail");
• Replace "username" with your gmail username, and leave the %40 there.
• Save prefs.js and reopen Thunderbird
  

After following the above steps, my "Trash" folder had disappeared in Thunderbird, and the Drafts and Sent Mail folders now had specialized icons. The last step is to go into Gmail and delete the new labels IMAP made, if you have them (I had [IMAP]\Trash, etc).

Update: And today (Oct 26) Lifehacker posted a "Geek-to-Live" article detailing what I posted plus a whole lot more.