Setting up GMail in Thunderbird

You can use the web interface for gmail or you can use it on your computer with Thunderbird (or Outlook, Windows Mail, or whatever other app you like). Using an offline mail app has the advantage that it lets you see your emails when offline without any extra work, so is probably worth it in you travel with your laptop a lot. Remember that it only has synced mail though, and it only syncs while open. 

To setup a new mail account in Thunderbird, first you need to open the account setup window. If it has not been setup before, this will probably already be open when you open Thunderbird, but otherwise, press Alt-T to open the Tools menu, and select Account Settings.

Next, click the Account Actions button and click Add Mail Account.

Now that the account setup window is open, enter your name, email address, and Google account password. 

Press the Continue button. It should now find the following info (with your address of course):

Press the Done button, and a window with a familiar web login box for your Google account should appear:

Enter your email address, and press Next.

Enter you password and press Next. Once you have logged in (if you use two factor authentication, you will have to do that as normal too), you will be asked whether to trust Thunderbird. 

Press the Allow button. The Google web sign-in and Account Setup windows should now close. Click OK on the account settings window, if it is open. Thunderbird will now download all of your mail, which can take a while. You can close and reopen Thunderbird, or shut-down, if you need to, and it will just continue when re-opened. Remember that you will not be able to see mail offline until it is downloaded.

Copy mail between accounts

If you have multiple different accounts set up in Thunderbird (just follow the instructions above for each account) you can easily copy email from one account to another simply by selecting the emails and dragging them into the target account.  Emails copied into web based account like Gmail will be uploaded into the cloud and can be accessed just like any other email in your inbox.

Make Thunderbird send in HTML

The footer that is attached to your email is best displayed in HTML (so the formatting is correct and hyperlinks work). It is worth forcing Thunderbird to send in HTML so recipients of your emails see them in the correct format.

Open Thunderbird.

Right click on you email address in the left hand column on in Thunderbird and click on Settings.

Select Global Composing Preferences....

Select the General tab and the click on Send Options.

Select Send the message in both plain text and HTML from the dropdown menu and untick Send messages as plain text if possible.