[[!meta title="Emailing and reading news with Thunderbird"]]

Tails includes <span class="application">Thunderbird</span> for:

- Reading and writing emails

- Reading [[!wikipedia RSS]] and [[!wikipedia Atom_(Web_standard) desc="Atom"]] feeds for news and blogs

To start <span class="application">Thunderbird</span> choose
<span class="menuchoice">
<span class="guimenu">Applications</span>&nbsp;▸
<span class="guisubmenu">Internet</span>&nbsp;▸
<span class="guimenuitem">Thunderbird</span></span>.

When starting <span class="application">Thunderbird</span> for the first time, an assistant appears to guide you through the process of configuring <span class="application">Thunderbird</span> to access your email account.

The assistant tries to configure automatically the correct settings to connect to your email provider based on your email address.

If the automatic configuration succeeds, you might have to specify which protocol to use to connect to your email provider, either <span class="guilabel">IMAP</span> or <span class="guilabel">POP</span>.

<span class="application">Thunderbird</span> in Tails is configured
for additional privacy and anonymity.

For example, <span class="application">Thunderbird</span> in Tails:

Removes information about the language of your session or spellchecker from the headers of the emails that you send.

Removes information that could identify you as a Tails user from the headers of your emails.

Only allows secure protocols and disables insecure protocols, like SSLv3.

Disables tracking technologies, like cookies and JavaScript, when viewing emails or feeds in HTML.

<p>Emails and feeds in HTML format are displayed in plain text by
default and can become harder to read.</p>

<p><i>GnuPG</i> and <i>[[Kleopatra|encryption_and_privacy/kleopatra]]</i>
allow you to work with OpenPGP encrypted text and files. Consider using
<i>Kleopatra</i> instead of <i>Thunderbird</i> if you want to exchange encrypted text and files, but
not by email.</p>

<p>The OpenPGP keys stored in <i>GnuPG</i> and <i>Kleopatra</i> are separate from the keys
stored in <i>Thunderbird</i>.</p>

See also the official [OpenPGP in Thunderbird - HOWTO and FAQ](https://support.mozilla.org/kb/openpgp-thunderbird-howto-and-faq).

Choose **Privacy & Security**.

If you already have an OpenPGP private key outside of *Thunderbird*, follow the instructions below to export it from *GnuPG* and import it into *Thunderbird*.