Mozilla Thunderbird is a powerful email application that can help you stay organized and keep you protected from viruses and spam. It is not the answer to all problems, but it is a great start and best of all it's a free download the offical website.

Step 1: Download

Thunderbird homepage in IE 7

Browse to http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/ and click on Download Thunderbird to start the download. You may have a choice of languages; just pick the version you like best.

click run

Click run to download and automatically run the Thunderbird installer. If you are using Firefox cling save then click run.

Step 2: Install

Click next

Select "I accept the terms in the License Agreement" and click next. It is often a good idea to read these agreements, especially for free software, but we can assure you this one is good.

The standard option should be fine.Click next.

Make sure the "Launch Mozilla Thunderbird now" check box is checked and click finish.

Step 3: Setup Email

You can import your email acounts automatically from another email software, but if you want to set it up fresh just choose "Don't import anything" and click next.

Select "Email account" and click next.

We want to setup an "Email account" at first so make sure it is selected and click next.

Fill out your name and your email address. I will use mine in this example.

To setup for POP (Post Office Protocol) enter mail.yourdomain.com as the the incoming and outgoing mail server. Remember to replace yourdomain.com with your domain as above. Click next.

Enter in your full email address and click next. It will by default only have the first part of your email so please change this.

This should already be filled out. Click next.

Your settings should look like this. If you recieved any additional screens you are most likely okay to just click next on any of them. Click finish.

Password screen

You will be prompted for a password. You can check the box to save your password if you like, but it gives anyone that uses your computer access to your email. Enter your password and click ok.

Step 4: Test Email (optional)

New email

To make sure everything is correct you can write a quick test email to yourself. By clicking "write" and composing as usual. For the To: use your own email address.

The Thunderbird main page.

If all went well your screen should look something like this.