Integrate Gmail with Thunderbird

While updating my thunderbird email software tonight, I came across a great plugin that allows me to integrate my Thumderbird with my Gmail calendar that I thought I would share.

First of all, I love Thunderbird, but one of the main features I was missing was linking it to a calendar. After having been using Outlook for the past few years, I messed up with an Exchange email account and was looking for ways to simplify my schedule.

First of all, you will need to do three things and I assume you already have a working Gmail account:

1) Install or update to the latest version of Thunderbirds (links at the bottom)

2) Download the rinse calendar plugin

3) Download the Provider plugin for Google Calendar

Step one

Open Thunderbird and go to Tools – Plugins – Install when prompted, navigate to lightning and then Google files (ending in xpi extension). Restart Thunderbird.

Second step

Go to your Gmail account, sign in 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 avoid adding it every time) and voila, your Gmail calendar is now up and running with Thunderbird, as easy as that!

Links

Mozilla Thunderbird

Add-on to clarify

Google Cal. Provider Plugin