Optimizing Thunderbird to work with a Gmail IMAP account.

These instructions presuppose that you have already setup a gmail account, enabled IMAP support, and followed all their instructions to setup basic IMAP support.  Google has some basic instructions for this online.  Once that is done follow these instructions to optimize your Thunderbird Gmail experience.

The first section contains general Thunderbird optimization instructions.

1. Click on Tools, Options, General, and uncheck When Thunderbird launches, show the Start Page in the message area.
2. Click on Composition, change Forward Messages to Inline.
3. Click Send Options, and change Ask me what to do to Send the messages in HTML anyway and click OK.
4. Click on Privacy, check the box next to When I mark messages as junk.
5. Click on Anti-Virus and select Allow anti-virus clients to quarantine individual incoming messages.
6. Click on Advanced, Network and Disk Space, click the box next to Compact folders when it will save over and change the number to 10000 and click OK.
   

The next section optimized Thunderbird for Gmail's IMAP connection.

1. Click Get Mail and type in your password (if you haven't already done so after setting up the account).
   
2. Click on Tools, Account Settings, Copies & Folders, for Sending, choose Other, the IMAP account name, Gmail, Sent Mail.
3. For Drafts, choose Other, the IMAP account name, Gmail, Drafts.
4. Click on Composition & Addressing, and change Start my reply below the quote to Start my reply above the quote.
5. Click on Offline & Disk Space, mark Make the Messages in my inbox available when I working offline and When I create new folders select them for offline use.
6. Click on Select folders for Offline use, expand all the plus signs, check all the boxes, and click OK.
   
7. Click on Junk Settings, select Move new Junk message to, select Other, IMAP account name, Gmail, Spam.
8. Select Automatically delete Junk Mail older than 14 days.