Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !
In this article, I’m going to concentrate on the three main Google contact items; Gmail, Google Contacts (part of Gmail), and Google Calendar. The main problem in using Thunderbird (version three in this case) with Gmail was synchronizing contacts, but that’s now easily possible using an addon.
First, we want to show our Google emails in Thunderbird. It’s important to note that we’ll be showing emails in Thunderbird - by that I mean Thunderbird won’t download your emails and delete them from the server. You’ll still be able to access your emails from another computer via the web browser.
Go to: File > New > Mail Account and fill in your real name, Google mail account, and your Google mail password, tick the box if you want Thunderbird to remember your password, and lastly click ‘Continue’ (above).
Thunderbird will display the best import settings for you (below left).
You can, using the button, configure the settings manually, but for ease of use, click ‘Create Account’. After a few moments (depending on your download speed), you’ll see all your Google mail in Thunderbird (below right).
As you can see (in the tree view in the left panel) you also have access to your ‘tags’ (as folders) and to your sent and draft folders (under [Gmail] in the list).
But what if you need to add a contact? Adding it in Thunderbird won’t add it to your Google Contacts list by default, so we’ll install the addon (also called) Google Contacts. Using your browser, go to: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/google-contacts/, and click the ‘Download Now’ button. You’ll download a .xpi file, and remember where you saved it! In Thunderbird, click Tools > Addons, and in the window that pops up, click the ‘Extensions’ icon at the top. At the bottom of this window, click ‘Install…’ and point it to the .xpi file you just downloaded. Done! You can now configure the Google Contacts addon in this window by clicking its name, and then the ‘Preferences’ button (below).
You can check that it works by creating a fake contact in Thunderbird, and, after giving a few moments to synchronize, check (via your browser) that it has appeared in your Google Contacts on the web. To manually force a synchronization, you can right click on the menu bar (where it says ‘Get Mail’, ‘Write’ etc), choose ‘Customization’, and drag the ‘Reload’ button into your menu (top right).
OK, so, we have our emails and our contacts going back and forth, now we need our Google Calendar. This is done in a similar manner to what we did with the contacts addon, but this second addon is called ‘G-Hub Lite’. Download it from: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/google-hub-google-tabs-for-thu/, and install it like you did with the previous addon. Again, right click on your menu bar and customize it by adding some Google buttons to your menu (below right).
Click the Calendar button you just added, and your Google Calendar will open in a new tab. From there, you use it exactly as you would any other time - adding/deleting items.
TIP: G-hub Lite has a button for Gmail (among other things), but it just shows the Google Mail website in a tab which, if that’s what you want, is a good shortcut with zero configuration.
Thunderbird has many other addons which make life easier. I have one installed to allow hiding/showing of email headers (CompactHeader it’s called), and another for exporting emails as plain text (it’s called ImportExportTools)
Enjoy Thunderbird, it’s more powerful than most people think!