Integrate Gmail with Thunderbird
While upgrading my Thunderbird email software tonight, I came across a great plugin that allowed me to integrate my Thunderbird with my Gmail calendar that I thought I’d share.
First of all, I love Thunderbird, and yet one of the main features I was missing was linking it to a calendar. Having been using Outlook for the past few years, I was spoiled with an Exchange email account and was looking for ways to streamline my schedule.
First, you’ll need to do three things and I’m assuming you already have a working Gmail account:
1) Install or update to the latest version of Thunderbirds (links at the bottom)
2) Download the Lightning Calendar Plugin
3) Download the Vendor plugin for Google Calendar
Step one
Open Thunderbird and go to Tools – Add-ons – Install when prompted, navigate to lightning then google files (ending in xpi extension). Restart Thunderbird.
Second step
Go to your Gmail account, login and click on the calendar option. Click on the calendar settings and go to the bottom of the options and click on the XML link. Now copy and paste the link shown to you.
Step three
Go back to Thunderbird and go to File – New – Calendar and select ‘On the network’.
Select Google Calendar and paste the link from before.
Give the calendar a name and press next.
Enter your username and password (check the remember option to save adding it each time) and voila, your Gmail calendar is now up and running with Thunderbird, it’s that easy!
links
mozilla thunderbird
lightning plugin
Google Cal. Vendor Plugin