Config Thunderbird
2025-02-13, Thu
Thunderbird is more useful than the default Mail client comes with macOS, since it functions not only as a mail client, but also newsfeed reader and IRC client. Even considering only mails, there is feature in it that's quite convenient, e.g. identify.
1. Using Identities
In short, Thunderbird identities1 allows selection of
different From addresses while sending mail. A default identity will be
created when the mail account is created, but extra ones could be added
through Tools > Account Settings > [Account Name] > Manage Identities.
Outgoing Server (SMTP) settings like user name and default identity could be changed here as well, which comes handy when a custom domain is used for sending email2.
2. Problem: Unable to send mail through Outlook
While trying to send mail through Outlook account in Thunderbird, I got the following error message:
Login to server smtp.office365.com with username <USERNAME> failed
Online search results aside, this issue could also be caused by
alias3 in the Outlook account: it seems like only
the primary alias is accepted as valid username of smtp.office365.com.
So when other options all have failed, give this direction a try.
3. Newsfeeds
Consider the following newsfeeds to subscribe:
- Recent RFCs
- https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfcrss.xml
- CS updates on arxiv.org
- https://rss.arxiv.org/rss/cs
- Math updates on arxiv.org
- https://rss.arxiv.org/rss/math
- IEEE Spectrum
- https://spectrum.ieee.org/feeds/feed.rss
- Hacker News
- https://news.ycombinator.com/rss
- xkcd.com
- https://xkcd.com/rss.xml
- Planet Lisp
- http://planet.lisp.org/rss20.xml
- Planet Scheme
- https://planet.scheme.org/atom.xml
- Planet GNU
- https://planet.gnu.org/rss20.xml
- Planet Gnome
- https://planet.gnome.org/rss20.xml
- Planet KDE
- https://planet.kde.org/atom.xml
As for Linux,
- Kernel Planet
- https://planet.kernel.org/rss20.xml
- LXer Linux News
- https://lxer.com/module/newswire/headlines.rss
- OMG! Linux
- https://omglinux.com/feed
Optional:
- Linuxiac
- https://linuxiac.com/feed/
- Phoronix
- https://www.phoronix.com/rss.php
Footnotes:
Thunderbird documentation on Using Identities https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/using-identities
When using custom domains, remember to set the SPF,
DKIM and DMARC properly in domain name provider. For what these settings
are for, search topics like "Gmail spam and authentication"
Add or remove an email alias in Outlook.com https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/add-or-remove-an-email-alias-in-outlook-com-459b1989-356d-40fa-a689-8f285b13f1f2