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Google gives great instructions on how to get IMAP access setup in Thunderbird. But it can take some searching to work out all the kinks. Here are some tips to save you the digging I had to do:

Fixing the IMAP folders

Thunderbird tries to create its own folders for Sent Items, Drafts, and Trash, but it’s a bit cleaner if we just use Gmail’s.

To change Sent Items and Drafts, go to Tools -> Account Settings and go to Copies & Folders under your Gmail account. Choose Other for both, and browse to the appropriate [Gmail]/ folder.

To change Trash, go to Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> General and click Config Editor in the bottom right. Filter for mail.server.server. You’ll see mail.server.server1, mail.server.server2, etc. – one for each account you have.

Find the account you want to change, then right click and go to New -> String. Enter mail.server.server1.trash\_folder\_name where server1 is the server for your account. Press Ok and enter [Gmail]/Trash for the value.

Once you’ve setup your folders, you can log into Gmail and delete the [IMAP]/ filters that Thunderbird created.

Sorting emails by date and thread

If you want messages to be sorted like they are in Gmail, go to Tool -> Options -> Advanced -> General. Click Config Editor (bottom right) and filter for mailnews.thread_pane_column_unthreads. Double click the row to change it to false.

Then, back in the main window, go to the View -> Sort by menu and make sure Date, Descending, and Threaded are all selected.

Adding multiple Gmail accounts

Adding another Thunderbird account for each Gmail account you have works as expected except for one problem: by default, all of the accounts use a single SMTP server.

To add SMTP servers for additional Gmail accounts:

1. Tools -> Account Settings
2. Choose Outgoing Server (SMTP) (bottom of account list on the left)
3. Click Add (right side)
4. Enter a description (e.g. youremail@gmail.com)
5. Enter smtp.gmail.com for Server Name
6. Enter 587 for Port
7. Check User name and Password
8. Enter youremail@gmail.com for User Name (or youremail@yourdomain.com for Google Apps)
9. Choose TLS for Use secure connection
10. Click OK
11. Choose the your Gmail account from the account list
12. Select the new SMTP server from the Outgoing Server (SMTP) drop down list.

Reordering accounts

I added my accounts in a somewhat random order, and wanted to resort the way they appeared in my folder list. To do this go to Tools -> Options -> Advanced -> General. Click Config Editor (bottom right) and filter for mail.accountmanager.accounts. Double click the row to edit it.

You can swap the values to adjust the order. If you had:

account1,account2,account3

and wanted account 2 to be first, change it to:

account2,account1,account3

Then click OK and restart Thunderbird.