Have just been told by BT that I need a new/different version of Thunderbird to work with the new BTMail system (used to be BTYahooMail) - do I?
I have had btinternet email for years, and Thunderbird for a long time too and have been happy with both. Unfortunately, I am not technical enough to understand most of the help or instructions on the Thunderbird support/info pages, but did manage to get TB set up in the first place (ages ago) and it seems to have worked well since. However, on Friday both of my BT accounts (two numbers, therefore two sets of BT email addresses) were moved over to the new BT Mail from the old BT Yahoo mail. I was unable to log in to one of them, but the other one was fine - I had some 'screen sharing' help from a BT technical chap to sort it out. However, Thunderbird was unable to conect with the email servers. I told BT and the tech chap tried to sort it out on the screen share, but was unable to (and I was unable to follow what he was doing). Some months ago, I made some changes, as requested by BT, to enable the transfer to go smoothly (!) but the man changed some things on Friday, I think, as well. He was unable to fix the TB problem and I can't figure it out at all, and the lady from BT Tech help who I spoke to this morning (and who had managed to sort out my BTID log-in problem, thankfully) had a look and suggested that maybe I needed an updated/new/different version of TB or 'another email'. Well, I'd really like to stay with Thunderbird and was hoping someone here could explain it in plain english for me, please? I was wondering what would happen, supposing I need to download an updated/different version, if I did that and then sort of re-installed my existing BT email addresses (just as if I was starting again with Thunderbird)? I do hope there is someone here who can help - please - I'm rather fond of that little blue bird. Thank you.
Chosen solution
Hi Zenos, Thank you so very much for your help - I now (touch wood) have my email back after following your directions. Hopefully it will remain in operation during my upgrade to Infinity next week. I am grateful to you for taking the time to reply to my somewhat rambling question. Had never heard of Critical Path before, I thought BTMail was BT. Oh, well, as long as it works I suppose (I hope it is better than the Yahoo system). Thanks again.
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I'd set the bt email account up again in Thunderbird. It's generally easier than trying to tweak an old account, and may be mandatory if one is POP and the other is IMAP.
I've just done so and it went through straight away and came back with the new "critical path" server address, using IMAP and SSL.
If they have done their job properly, all the stuff that was stored in the old yahoo-provided account should be there in the new one.
Email has standards. There's no good reason why one email client should work and another doesn't, or that a new version would be needed. It's all just POP, IMAP and SMTP and these are what Thunderbird uses.
Thanks for your speedy reply Zenos. I was thinking it would be easier, but was afraid to delete everything in case I lost my msgs. Will give it a go, though I have a couple more questions too. Could you tell me what a critical path server address is please? In my place, would you just delete the accounts under the Account Actions button in Thunderbird and then set them up again, or would you be more inclined to delete and re-install Thunderbird also? (Like I said, I know very little about this.) Many thanks.
Just add the account again.
File|New|Existing Mail Account…
There should be no need to delete or reinstall anything. Re-installing Thunderbird itself is rarely useful, since doing this doesn't delete account data. Don't delete the old yahoo-based account until you're sure that everything you need to keep is in the new criticalpath-based account.
CriticalPath is the name of the business providing email services to bt.com.
Some not very reassuring reading here.
You'd think bt could run their own email service, wouldn't you? Yahoo was generally seen as a poor choice. I'm not sure that criticalpath is any better.
Modified by Zenos
Chosen Solution
Hi Zenos, Thank you so very much for your help - I now (touch wood) have my email back after following your directions. Hopefully it will remain in operation during my upgrade to Infinity next week. I am grateful to you for taking the time to reply to my somewhat rambling question. Had never heard of Critical Path before, I thought BTMail was BT. Oh, well, as long as it works I suppose (I hope it is better than the Yahoo system). Thanks again.