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.
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.