Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Blackberry with Thunderbird or Other Non-Outlook Email Applications

Summary: Blackberry users should not be forced into using Outlook. Blackberry service can be easily integrated with Thunderbird or other non-Outlook email applications.

Solution: Thunderbird is the primary email application that is used on a desktop to send, receive and file messages. Blackberry is a secondary email application that is used to send and receive email messages remotely. User needs to (1) use a single email address known to the outside world, (2) be able to receive and send email to and from this single email address from either the Blackberry or Thunderbird, (3) maintain a complete record in Thunderbird of all sent and received email (whether sent or received from the Blackberry or Thunderbird).

Detailed Instructions:

1. Select an External Email Address. Select an email address that will be used externally, i.e. the email address you provide to others on your business card or otherwise. For this example, we will use fred@flintstone.com.

2. Configure Domain-Level Email Forwarding. Configure your domain-level email forwarding so that all incoming email addressed to fred@flintstone.com is forwarded to both a dedicated Blackberry address (fredflintstone@att.blackberry.net) and a dedicated Thunderbird address (fredthunderbird@gmail.com).

3. Configure Blackberry. Configure the dedicated Blackberry address so that the "Reply to:" address is fred@flintstone.com and the "Auto BCC:" address is fredthunderbird@gmail.com.

4. Configure Thunderbird. Configure Thunderbird to retrieve email from fredthunderbird@gmail.com; this will include incoming email sent to fred@flintstone.com as well as BCC email from the Blackberry. Configure Thunderbird so that the "Reply to:" address is fred@flintstone.com and the "Auto BCC:" address is fredflintstone@att.blackberry.net. Create a Thunderbird rule that is applied to all incoming email sent from fred@flintstone.com (which is BCC email from the Blackberry) that marks messages as "Read" and files them in the "Sent Items" folder.

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for your method, but i see many problems:

    -If you write from the BB or TH, people will see from fredflintstone@att.blackberry.net or from fredthunderbird@gmail.com; if they press "reply", "reply to" will be used and everything will be fine, but eventually they will use the "from" adress and the method will not work.

    -Can you make the same filter in bb that in th? to store the redirected mail marked as read and in sent items, i think it cant be done.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Alxemi -

    You can configure both Blackberry and Thunderbird so that the "Reply to" address is fred@flintstone.com so recipients of messages from either source do not see your underlying email address (either the blackberry.net address or the gmail.com address). I have been using this setup for 3 months and have changed my underlying blackberry.net and my underlying gmail.com address several times without any email interruption and without hte outside world ever noticing.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have tried to do this but my primary email service, att/yahoo, only provides one forwarding address opportunity. did I miss something? Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Its possible also keep backup old OS outlooks mails in my new OS Iphone. Blackberry Development

    ReplyDelete