With the Zimbra Collaboration Suite, you are able to access your email using Mozilla Thunderbird messaging and collaboration client. Optionally, you can view your Zimbra Calendar using the separate Lightning Add-on for Thunderbird.

This guide shows you how to access to your Zimbra Mail and Calendar using Thunderbird 2 with the Lightning 0.5 Add-On.

Before You Begin

This guide assumes that you have already installed Thunderbird 2 and, optionally, have already installed the Lightning Add-on. For more information on downloading and installing this software, go to Mozilla’s Thunderbird page, http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/ .

To access your email, you must have the following information:

• Your Zimbra email address and password.

• Incoming mail server. This is usually in the form of mail.domain.com.

• Outgoing mail server (SMTP). This is usually in the form of smtp.domain.com.

Your system administrator will be able to give you this information if you do not already have it.

Accessing your Zimbra Mail with Thunderbird

To access your Zimbra Mail, you must first create an account in Thunderbird. The following steps guide you through setting up a new account in Thunderbird.

To create a new account in Thunderbird

1. Go to File>New>Account. This will open the Account Wizard.

If you have just opened Thunderbird for the first time, the Account Wizard will automatically open.

2. Select Email account in the New Account Setup dialog. Click Next.

3. Enter the name you want to appear in the From field of your outgoing emails in the Your Name field. Enter your Zimbra email address into the Email Address field. Click Next.

4. Select IMAP. Enter the name of your incoming server in the Incoming Server field. If this is your first time using Thunderbird, type the name of your outgoing server in the Outgoing Server (SMTP) field. Click Next.

Note: By default, Thunderbird will not use a secure connection for your incoming and outgoing servers. If your servers require a secure connection, such as TLS or SSL, you must set this after you exit the Account Wizard. To change your secure connection setting, see Changing Your Server Settings.

Note: If you have an existing outgoing server already set as a default, the Account Wizard will automatically use this information. You can change this after you have created your account. To change this setting to the correct outgoing server, see Changing Your Server Settings.

5. Enter your incoming user name from your email address into the Incoming User Name field. If this is your first time using Thunderbird, enter your outgoing user name in the Outgoing User Name field. This is the first part of your Zimbra email address. For example, if your email address is john.doe@example.com, your incoming user name is john.doe.

6. Enter the name you want to call this account in the Account Name field.

7. Verify that the information displayed is correct. If any information is incorrect, select Back and update the information. When the account information is correct, click Finish.

Your settings are saved, and the Account Wizard closes. You are now able to access your Zimbra Mail.

If your incoming server and outgoing server use secure connections, you will need to configure this before you are able to access your mail. Additionally, if you did not specify an outgoing server when you were setting up your Zimbra email account, you will not be able to send outgoing messages yet. See the next section in order to change your server settings.

Changing Your Server Settings

If your incoming server and outgoing server use secure connections, you will need to configure this before you are able to access your mail. Additionally, if your Outgoing Server (SMTP) is not set to the correct server, you will not be able to send outgoing messages. Use the following directions to change your server settings.

To change the secure connection settings for your incoming mail server

1. In Thunderbird, go to Tools>Account Settings.

2. Select Server Settings, which is located under your Zimbra email account profile, listed on the left. Your Server Settings are displayed.

3. Under Security Settings, select whether to use TLS if available, TLS, or SSL. Select Never if you do not want to use a secure connection. Select whether to use secure authentication.

4. Click OK to save your settings.

To change the secure connection settings for your outgoing mail server

1. In Thunderbird, go to Tools>Account Settings.

2. Select Outgoing Server (SMTP), which is located at the bottom of the Settings list on the left. Your Outgoing Server (SMTP) Settings are displayed.

3. Select the outgoing server for your Zimbra email account, and click Edit.

4. In the SMTP Server dialog, under Security and Authentication, select whether to use TLS if available, TLS, or SSL. Select No if you do not want to use a secure connection. Click OK.

5. Click OK to save your settings.

To add an outgoing server to your Zimbra email account

1. In Thunderbird, go to Tools>Account Settings.

2. Select Outgoing Server (SMTP), which is located at the bottom of the Settings list on the left. Your Outgoing Server (SMTP) Settings are displayed.

3. Click Add.

4. In the SMTP Server dialog, enter the following information:

• Description. Enter a name for your outgoing server.

• Server name. Enter the name of your outgoing server. This is usually in the form of smtp.domain.com

• Port. This is 25 by default. If your SMTP server has a different port number, enter it here.

• User Name. Enter your Zimbra email account user name.

• Secure Connection. Select whether to use TLS if available, TLS, or SSL. Select No if you do not want to use a secure connection.

Click OK.

5. In the Account Settings dialog, select your Zimbra email account, located in the Settings list on the left.

6. Select the Zimbra outgoing server from the Outgoing Server (SMTP) drop-down list in your Account Settings.

7. Click OK.

Viewing your Zimbra Calendar using Lightning

The following steps show you how to read your Zimbra Calendar with Thunderbird using the Lightning Add-on. These instructions assume that you have already installed Lightning 0.5.

To view your Zimbra Calendar using Lightning

Note: These instructions will allow you to view your calendar using Thunderbird with the Lightning Add-on. You will not be able to create or edit appointments, meetings, or events.

1. Open the Zimbra Web Client, and click on the Calendar tab.

2. Right click on Calendar in the Calendar List pane and select Share Calendar from the right-click menu.

The URL of your Calendar is located at the bottom of the Share Properties dialog. Write down or copy this URL.

3. Open Thunderbird.

4. Click on the Calendars tab, in the lower left of your Thunderbird application.

5. Click on New. A Create New Calendar dialog will display.

6. Select On the Network. Click Next.

7. Select iCalendar (ICS). In the Location field, enter the URL of your Zimbra Calendar. Click Next.

8. Enter a name for your Zimbra Calendar in the Name field. Then, select a color for your Calendar. Click Next.

9. Enter your username and password, if you are prompted.

Note: if you are not prompted, and access to the calendar fails, a workaround that I found is using a Calendar URL in this scheme – not elegant to put a password inside this URL; but the only way that worked for me (HenningSprang):

webcal://:@zimbrahost.example.com/home//Calendar

10. Click Finish.

Accessing your Zimbra Calendar using Lightning with CalDAV (Only works with ZCS 5.0+ and Lightning 0.8+)

As of some recent build of Lightning (v0.8+), and a recent build of Zimbra (v5.0+) you can also use CalDAV to connect. This appears to fix some problems with deleting events as well.

To use CalDAV, just follow the above steps but use a CalDAV URL of the below form:

http://:@zimbrahost.example.com/dav//Calendar

• (note from alfa_sw33: (ZCS 5.0.10) I use the URL without password:

  https://zimbrahost.example.com/dav/USERNAME/KalendarName

  so you won’t have to save your password in cleartext…

Feature Differences When Using Thunderbird

If you have used the Zimbra Web Client, note that the following features are different when using Thunderbird as a client.

• To view mail folders that you have created using the Zimbra Web Client, you must subscribe to them.

• Thunderbird may not always expunge deleted items or old drafts. These messages will be visible if you access your mail using Zimbra Web Client.

• Lightning does not use notifications for upcoming events and meetings.

• The Lightning Add-On may not automatically refresh your Zimbra Calendar. To see the most recent version of your Calendar, right-click and select Reload Remote Calendars .

• Lightning only records a single set of authentication information for all remote calendars. If you have already set up access to another remote calendar using Lightning, you may encounter authentication errors when attempting to view your Zimbra calendar.

Date Modified: 12/6/2010

Přihlásíme se do webového rozhraní, klikneme na kalendář = sdílet – zkopírujeme odkaz do Lightningu.

Thunderbird/Lightning Config

After restarting when you installed the extensions above, you’ll see the lightening calendar bar in your default view. Click on Calendars and you’ll see there is one called ‚home‘. This is your default one. Let’s add a calendar…click on ‚New‘. Choose „On The Network“ for your location.

Next, choose icalendar (ICS) and input the URL you copied from the previous step in the blank and click Next.Give the calendar a unique name and pick a color (I’m partial to green), click next, then click finish. It should prompt you for a login and password…make sure you use your Zimbra Login and Password.

https://mail.pmh.cz/home/m.spesny@pmh.cz/Calendar

Syncing Zimbra calendars using Thunderbird & CalDAV
ics přístpu má chybu, kalendář lze mazat jen nastavením události na udalosti na Možnosti – Stav – Zrušeno.
Proto je lépe zatím použít DAV:

Syncing your Zimbra calendars to Thunderbird is easy using CalDAV and Mozilla’s Lightning extension. Syncing via CalDAV allows you to sync, edit and create new appointments on any of your Zimbra calendars in Thunderbird.

In order to sync using CalDAV, you must first download & install the Lightning extension for Thunderbird at: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/lightning/download.html

Once Lightning is installed, open Thunderbird:

In the lower left corner of the main Thunderbird window, select Calendar:

In the menu bar, navigate to Calendar > New Calendar:

Select On the Network, then click Continue:

Select CalDAV as the calendar type:

In the location field you will need to enter your Zimbra calendar URL address. To find the URL for your calendar open a web browser and navigate to: https://mail.01.com/ and login to your Zimbra account. Once logged in, click on the Calendar tab:

In your calendar list, right-click (control-click on a Mac) on the calendar you would like to add to Thunderbird’s Lightning program then choose Share Calendar:

In the Share Properties window, copy the URL location of your calendar:

In this example, my URL is: https://mail-1.01.com/home/jay/Work

Close or minimize the Zimbra web client and navigate back to Lightning’s Create a new calendar window. In the location field, paste the URL location obtained in the Zimbra web client into the Location field:

Delete the word ‘home’ from the URL and replace it with ‘dav’. Then click Continue:

Name your calendar, choose a color for your calendar, check whether or not you would like to alerted to appointment alarms and press Continue:

Thunderbird’s Lightning extension will confirm your calendar addition. Press Done:

In the main Calendar window, press the reload button to force a sync to your Zimbra account:

Upon reloading your calendar events will appear in Thunderbird’s Lightning calendar:

New appointments made in Lightning will sync to your Zimbra acount while appointments made in the Zimbra web interface will sync to Lightning. To add additional calendars to Thunderbird, repeat these steps from the beginning.

Thanks to Jared Howell of jabyte.com, who adds: “combined with Zindus and a few other addons (Folder Account, Signature Switch, and Sync on Arrival), I have a great alternative to Outlook. And a free alternative at that”.

Zimbra using Lightning