Email

Office365#

University uses Microsoft Office365 mail service, therefore access to your mail and calendars is almost standard as Microsoft servers support IMAP, POP3 and SMTP protocols.

Thunderbird#

Install Thunderbird with the following ‘must have’ add-ons:

  • Lightning (Calendar and task manager) Usually included into new TB versions by default, however in Ubuntu for historical reason it is distributed as separate package:
sudo apt install thunderbird xul-ext-lightning
  • LookOut (for compatibility with MS Outlook attachments)
  • TBSync (Sync contacts, tasks and calendars to Thunderbird. Currently supporting Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) and sabre/dav)
  • EAS provider for TBSync (This provider add-on adds Exchange ActiveSync (EAS v2.5 & v14.0) synchronization capabilities to TbSync)

For TbSync/ActiveSync installation follow the [Instructions](https://github.com/jobisoft/TbSync/wiki/How-to-get-started here)

In brief, TBSync settings should look like:

  • Description: Any meaningful description (e.g. VUV 365)
  • User name: your_VUW_login@staff.vuw.ac.nz
  • Server address: outlook.office.365.com
  • [v] Use secure connection

IMAP (incoming mail) settings:#

  • Server Name: outlook.office365.com
  • Port: 993
  • User Name: your_VUW_login@staff.vuw.ac.nz or your_VUW_login@student.vuw.ac.nz
  • Connection security: SSL/TLS
  • Authentication Method: OAuth2

SMTP (outgoing mail) settings:#

  • Server Name: smtp.office365.com
  • Port: 587
  • Connection security: STARTTLS
  • Authentication Method: OAuth2
  • User Name: your_VUW_login@staff.vuw.ac.nz or your_VUW_login@student.vuw.ac.nz

Troubleshooting#

Since January 2023 Microsoft has dropped password authentication, so your old Thunderbird configuration will stop working. To make it working again switch to “OAuth2” authentication method both for IMAP and SMTP server configuration.