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Learn How to Configure Office 365 in Mozilla Thunderbird Manually

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Published By Mohit Jha
Tej Pratap Shukla
Approved By Tej Pratap Shukla
Published On December 18th, 2021
Reading Time 5 Minutes Reading

We all know that Office 365 is the leading cloud-based Office suite provider. People use it because of its attractive applications and data security. However, no one can guarantee the complete security of your data, whether it is locally saved on stored in the cloud. Therefore, it is necessary that users back up their cloud data in the local server. One good way to backup Office 365 is to configure it in Thunderbird. In this write-up, we will tell you how to configure Office 365 in Mozilla Thunderbird. First, we will have a look at some user queries regarding this matter.

Why Users Wants to Setup Office 365 Account in Thunderbird

Query 1: “I use Thunderbird in my system and Office 365 in Office. Though Office 365 has the profound policy regarding data loss and data protection, I am not satisfied with it. So I think I should setup Office 365 email on Thunderbird account so that I will have another copy of Office 365 data. Unfortunately, I do not have any idea how to configure Office 365 in Mozilla Thunderbird. Can anyone tell me its manual procedure?”
Query 2: “Please help! I am in urgent need to access Office 365 data through Thunderbird. For that, I need to setup Office 365 account in Thunderbird firstly. But I do not know how to perform it. Please tell me any easy way by which, I will be able to perform the process in an easy manner. Any suggestion is welcome. Thanks in advance.”

How to Configure Office 365 in Mozilla Thunderbird in Manual Ways

In this section, we will learn the process of setting up Office 365 in Thunderbird in a manual way. This process is divided into several parts and we will talk about all the parts here. In this method, we will take the help of an IMAP server to access Office 365 in Thunderbird.

1. Configure Office 365 Account in Thunderbird

a. Launch the latest version of Thunderbird on your system. If you do not have any account configured in it, you will be prompted to do one. Otherwise, proceed to click on Menu icon and then select Options>> Account Settings>> Account Actions>> Add Mail Account respectively.

b. On the next window, enter your name, Office 365 account id, and its password.

c. Click on Continue to go to the next step.

d. Thunderbird will fetch the server settings and display it on your screen.

e. Click Done to go back to the page of Account Settings. If the configuration is done properly, the newly added Office 365 account will be visible on the left panel. In that case, close the window.

f. You can be sure that the configuration is done. However, for the data to get synchronized, you have to wait for some time.

Important: Though the configuration is done, users have to perform the following steps before that start using Thunderbird.

2. Reconfigure Mapping of Thunderbird Folder

Reconfiguring folder mapping is an essential step before you use Thunderbird.

a. Open Thunderbird and right-click on the Office 365 account that you have configured to click on Subscribe.

b. Check the box beside each of the following folders: Deleted Items, Drafts, Sent Items. Once done, click on Subscribe button on the right.

c. Then click on the OK button.

d. Again, right-click on the O365 account and click on Settings this time.

e. Select Server Settings option under Office 365 account.

f. For “When I delete a message” option, choose the radio button for “Move it to this folder” and select “Deleted Items” folder.

g. Now, select “Copies & Folders” under the O365 account.

h. For ‘When sending messages, automatically section, check the box for Place a copy in option. Choose“Other” and then select the “Sent Items” folder of your Office 365 account from the pull-down menu.

i. In “Drafts and Templates” section, select Others>> Drafts folder of Office 365.

j. Click OK and restart Thunderbird. Now it is ready for use.

3. Disable Junk Mail Controls

You have to disable the adaptive junk mail settings for Thunderbird using these steps:

a. Open Thunderbird and go to its left pane to click on the newly configured email address.

b. Click on View settings for this account in the detailed pane.

c. Click on Junk Settings from the left panel.

d. Uncheck the box beside the option “Enable adaptive junk mail controls for this account.”

e. Finally, click OK to finish the process.

Note: If you wish to back up your Office 365 data on Mac Operating system but do not want to go through this lengthy manual process, you can take the help of Office 365 Mac Backup Tool. This tool allows you to save the Office 365 data in MBOX format that can be opened in Mozilla Thunderbird easily.

Conclusion

Both Exchange Online and Thunderbird are popular in their own domains. Sometimes, people may need to access Office 365 account in Thunderbird. In that case, the first thing they have to setup Office 365 account in Thunderbird. In this post, we have discussed how to configure Office 365 in Mozilla Thunderbird. Users can take the help of the manual process described here to perform the configuration. Otherwise, they can also take the help of the tool mentioned here.

  author

By Mohit Jha

Mohit is a Microsoft-certified expert who has assisted thousands of clients with Outlook & Microsoft Office 365 issues. He enjoys writing on email clients as well as data migration. He is always excited about giving troubled readers the most up-to-date knowledge, explanation, and refinements.