How to setup Microsoft 365 in Thunderbird

Included in this article:

Step-By-Step Configuration:

1. Open Thunderbird. Under Local Folders, click Email under the 'Setup Another Account' heading.

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2. Enter your name, username@uwaterloo.ca and password in the 'Setup your Existing Email Address' page. Click Configure manually... (Note: your username is your 8-character UWaterloo username, i.e. j25rober)

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3. The Incoming and Outgoing settings appear in the expanded options.

4. You will be prompted with an ADFS login. Enter your credentials password and click Sign in. 
You will be prompted for 2-factor authentication. Select your preferred prompt option and click OK.

5. Accept the permissions requested and your account should now be setup! 

Reconfigure folder mapping in Thunderbird for Microsoft 365 Mailbox

Clients configured using Microsoft Exchange protocol use different folders for some of the primary mail folders. For consistency, we highly recommend that you configure Thunderbird to use these same folders. This will make it less confusing if you also use the web client for Microsoft 365 or a different desktop client that is using the Exchange protocol.

Right-click on your Microsoft 365 account and select Subscribe... from the drop-down menu.

1. Place a checkmark within the box next to each of these folders: "Drafts | Deleted Items | Sent Items".

2. Click Subscribe button.

3. Click OK button.

4. Right-click on your Microsoft 365 account and select Settings... from the drop-down menu.

• Under your Microsoft 365 account, select Server Settings.

• Within 'Server Settings, in the 'When I delete a message' section, select Move it to this folder: and use the text box next to this setting to select the Deleted Items"folder.

Make sure Drafts folder is selected within your Microsoft 365 account under 'Drafts and Templates'.

1. Click the OK button.

2. Restart Thunderbird

Disable the adaptive junk mail controls

Microsoft 365 server-side junk/spam filtering is already enabled for all M365 accounts.

1. Right-click on the email address you just configured in the left-hand pane.

2. Click on Settings.

3. Click Junk Settings from the left-hand options pane.

4. Uncheck the box for Enable adaptive junk mail controls for this account.

5. Click the OK button.

Common Microsoft 365 folders and Thunderbird

There are common mail folders on a Microsoft 365 (M365) Outlook email account e.g. 'Deleted Items', 'Drafts' and 'Sent Items'.
The Thunderbird program can 'subscribe' to these folders so that you can tell Thunderbird to use these Outlook folders when Thunderbird does the following:

• deletes an email: move the deleted email msg to the M365 'Deleted Items' folder

• saves an email draft: keep the saved email msg in the M365 'Drafts' folder

• sends an email: save a copy of the email msg in the M365 'Sent Items' folder

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