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.