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>.

<p>To store your
emails, feeds, and settings across different working sessions,
turn on the [[Thunderbird Email Client|persistent_storage/configure#thunderbird]]
feature of the Persistent Storage.</p>

For more documentation, visit the official [*Thunderbird* Support](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/products/thunderbird) website.

<h1 id="account">Configuring an email account</h1>

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.

<p>To start this assistant again in the future from the main window of
<span class="application">Thunderbird</span>, choose
<span class="menuchoice">
<span class="guimenu">[[!img lib/open-menu.png alt="Menu" class=symbolic link=no]]</span>&nbsp;▸
<span class="guimenuitem">Account Settings</span>
</span> and then, from the <span class="guilabel">Account Settings</span>
dialog, choose <span class="guilabel">Account Actions</span>&nbsp;▸
<span class="guilabel">Add Mail Account&hellip;</span>.</p>

Enter your name, email address, and password into the corresponding fields.

Click <span class="guilabel">Continue</span>.

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

If the automatic configuration fails, consult your email provider
about how to configure your email account manually.

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>.

- With <span class="guilabel">IMAP</span>,
<span class="application">Thunderbird</span> constantly synchronizes
with the server and displays the emails and folders that are
currently stored on the server. IMAP is better suited if you access
your emails from different operating systems.

- With <span class="guilabel">POP</span>,
<span class="application">Thunderbird</span> downloads the emails that
are in the inbox on the server and possibly deletes them from the
server. POP is better suited if you access your emails from Tails only
and store them in the Persistent Storage.

To know more, see also this [comparison between POP and
IMAP](https://help.riseup.net/en/email/clients/#choose-imap-or-pop) by
Riseup.

<h2>Gmail</h2>

<p>You can use your Gmail account with <i>Thunderbird</i> in Tails.</p>

<ol>
<li>
<p>Make sure that you have 2-Step Verification turned on in your Gmail account.</p>
<p>See <a href="https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/185839">Google Account Help: 2-Step Verification</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Configure the new account as IMAP when <i>Thunderbird</i> asks you to
choose between POP and IMAP.</p>
</li>
</ol>