Article Update: The steps outlined below are for use with Thunderbird 2. A newer post for Thunderbird 3 users has been written more recently. Thunderbird 3 makes syncing with Gmail 100×’s easier than the method below.

I originally used the Gmail option in Thunderbird 2’s Account Wizard to set up my Gmail account (almost 2 years ago). Looking at my settings in Thunderbird, I noticed that my Gmail account was set up for POP3 and not syncing at all (due to some changes Google made in late November, 2008).

POP3 vs IMAP

With POP3, you only get 1-way syncing. IMAP, not POP3, is what you will need if you want 2-way syncing with your computer and your online Gmail account. We want our Gmail account to be up-to-date on both our web account and the Thunderbird account on our computer.

Why Thunderbird 2’s Gmail setting still uses POP3, I don’t know. Maybe there will be an update for this soon.

I use Gmail as 1 part of my backup plan for work files. Copies of my site’s DB backups are emailed (via a handy WordPress plugin) to my Gmail account. But I also wanted a local copy available on my hard drive.

Fortunately, a little searching did me good and I found the solution.

Syncing Gmail and Thunderbird (The Solution)

I’ve recorded some notes and a few extra steps to help you (especially if you’re making the switch in Thunderbird from POP3 to IMAP).

Note: Before doing the following steps, make a backup of your Thunderbird profile in case something glitchy happens in the process.

If you already have a Gmail account set up in Thunderbird, I would also make a separate, new Gmail account/folder in Thunderbird for the IMAP version. Make the following changes to that new account. You can delete the original (POP3) account in Thunderbird once you’re sure everything’s been copied over.

Setting Up IMAP in Gmail and Linking to Thunderbird

Now, setup your IMAP/Gmail:

1. First, make sure you have IMAP set up in Gmail: Enabling IMAP in Gmail
2. Then, set up IMAP access to Gmail in Thunderbird 2.0
3. Also change your account settings based on the recommended Thunderbird settings (see note below)
   

Important: In the Recommended Thunderbird settings (step 3 above), your Gmail subfolders may not show up immediately. This will make it impossible to set the destination folders properly.

If your Gmail account in Thunderbird does have subfolders already (see illustration), you can skip down to Moving Missed Emails.

However, if your Gmail subfolders don’t appear in Thunderbird and you can’t properly set your destination folders, try this:

1. I recommend not enabling the Check for new messages at startup (Tools > Account Settings in Thunderbird).
2. Close Thunderbird without checking your email and then restart Thunderbird.
3. If there are still no subfolders ([Gmail], Drafts, All Mail, Sent Mail, etc… see screenshot) under your newly created Gmail account, you may need to write a new message from your new account in Thunderbird and save as a draft.
4. You should then see a [Gmail] subfolder with the following subfolders under it: Drafts, All Mail, Sent Mail, Spam, and so forth. If still nothing shows, then just restart Thunderbird again.

Now you should be able to go back into your account settings for your new account in Thunderbird and set the destination folders (according to the recommended Thunderbird settings).

After I finished all the above steps, I went back in and enabled Check for new messages at startup.

1. Go to Tools > Account Settings in Thunderbird and choose your newly setup Gmail account.
2. Re-enable Check for new messages at startup.
3. Save your settings.

Depending on your settings, Thunderbird should have already downloaded and synced your former emails that were on your online Gmail account to your newly created Gmail account folder (it will show the progress in the status bar).

Moving Missed Emails to New Gmail Folder

If you’re missing some recent emails that are in Thunderbird but not on your online account (like I was because of my former POP3 settings), here’s what you do:

1. Go to your old Gmail account folder in Thunderbird and select all the affected email.
2. Then right-click and choose Move To > [and select the Inbox of your new Gmail account].

Depending on how many files you’re moving, it may take some time to sync everything up. After it’s completed, your online Gmail account and your Gmail account in Thunderbird should all be syncing.

Cleaning Up

Once you’re sure that all the emails you need are copied to your new Thunderbird Gmail account, you can safely remove the old Gmail account; leaving your brand new, sparkling IMAP-enabled account.

Syncing With Other Email Clients

The same basic formula for syncing Gmail to Thunderbird should also work whether you’re using Outlook, Apple Mail, etc. Your settings may be different depending on your email client though, so use the IMAP help in Google Gmail Troubleshooting and choose the desktop client you use.

Troubleshooting > IMAP (For a list of all the topics under IMAP troubleshooting)

I hope this helps you. If you have any questions or comments, drop me a line or leave a comment below.

If you have logged into Google Reader this afternoon, you may have noticed some subtle drastic changes.

Ex-nay on the Rounded Corners

The biggest and most obvious changes involve the Google Reader interface. No more rounded corners. Also the light blue in the sidebar and elsewhere has been replaced with plain white and a more subdued color scheme.

Personally, it seems as though they are realigning their design to match the basic look of the Google Chrome browser.

But beyond the visual look, there’s some added functionality as well.

More Room

You can now expand and collapse the navigation sections in the sidebar to show and hide information. This is a welcome addition for those (like me) who have a huge number of feeds and don’t always use the Home and Shared sections. This gives more room for your list of feeds.

Edit: The search has been improved as well. Now when you go to choose which tags to search through, you can start typing and the tags are filtered as you type. This helps speed things up if you have a huge list of tags.

The Refresh button has been moved from the sidebar and now resides at the top of the main Reader window.

I haven’t had time to tinker and explore yet, but I’m looking forward to it.

For a more in-depth list of the changes to Google Reader, see Google’s Blog post.

What do you think about the new design? Love it? Hate it? Meh?