How to Add and Manage Identities in Thunderbird

As soon as you set up a Thunderbird email account, you can send the email from a different email address or alias. Thunderbird defines them as “identities,” which the recipients see as your various name-associations. This capability of Thunderbird is quite similar to a Gmail feature called “Send mail as,” which uses your primary Gmail account to send messages from your other email addresses.

As shown here, adding and managing identities in Thunderbird is very easy. Follow the simple steps shown below.

Also read:How to Disable Thunderbird Popup Notifications (Quick Tips)

How to Set Up Multiple Thunderbird Identities

Creating multiple Thunderbird identities helps you manage send-receipt preferences within a single email account. This is different from creating multiple Thunderbird email accounts which is possible from the “Local Folders” menu on the top left. To create separate Thunderbird identities, go to “Account Settings.” It’s recommended that you upgrade to the latest Thunderbird version.

Scroll down below under “Account Settings” and “Default Identity” to find a “Manage Identities” option. Click to open a new dialog box.

In the dialog box, you can add a new identity of your choice on the existing email address. Currently, there doesn’t seem to be any limit on the number of Thunderbird email identities you can set up. But if you run into any problems with multiple identities, do let us know in the comments.

At first, you need to enter the public data for the new identity. These include your name, email address, and reply-to email address which can be the same or different based on your choice. You can create multiple name identities without changing your email address. It’s also easy to add a signature text and vCard to the identity.

Set up your private data and default server, which may be kept default, or you can use Google mail (smtp.gmail.com) if you had previously set up Gmail with your Thunderbird account. You can further edit the SMTP server for port number and other details. But it’s best to omit that step. Give your new Thunderbird identity an “identity label” to help you identify the alias when you’re composing the message.

Go to the “Copies & Folders” tab, where you can choose to place a copy of emails sent from a separate Thunderbird identity in the sent items of your primary mailbox. You can also choose to CC yourself in the primary email account (or any other account) for the identity emails.

Working with Multiple Identities in Thunderbird

Working with multiple identities in Thunderbird is very easy. As soon as you compose an email, you will find a pull-down menu on top in the “From” field. Here you can choose from your primary email account or among any of the identities you have. Finish composing the message under the separate identity.

As shown here, the emails for the separate identity are copied by default to the primary email. Sending the email from a separate identity will also be picked by the recipient as a separate identity sender.

Once you don’t need the separate identity anymore, you can delete it easily from the “Manage identities” menu in “Account Settings” and “Default Identity.” You can also edit the identity to make other changes, such as connecting to another email account, changing the identity name, or adding end-to-end encryption.

After adding and managing Thunderbird email identities, you are ready to use your email account with Thunderbird to its fullest potential. If you’re a frequent Thunderbird user, consider familiarizing yourself with its many add-ons. You can also add custom search engines in Thunderbird.