Changing Mozilla Thunderbird Password

Almost everyone who uses Mozilla Thunderbird is impressed with the tons of features that are built into this free e-mail client. However, as with most freebie software, it is not always very intuitively designed and some things are not easy to figure out.

One such situation becomes apparent when the need arises to change an e-mail account password. Sometimes you need to change a password because you have changed it on your e-mail server. Sometimes you need to change it because you accidentally entered and saved an invalid password, which may prevent you from accessing your e-mail. Sometimes you just need to remove a password that you have accidentally saved on a PC used by multiple people.

Changing a password in Thunderbird is not very difficult. Just follow these steps. This method works for both 1.x and 2.x versions of Thunderbird.

1. Select Tools, Options from the top menu.
2. Select Privacy.
3. Select the Passwords tab.
4. Click the Edit Saved Passwords button.
5. Make sure that the Passwords Saved tab is selected on the Password Manager dialog box.
6. Look for the name of the e-mail account that you wish to change. Highlight the account name and click the Remove button. This will allow you to re-enter the password the next time you try to access your mail.
7. Click the OK button.

For Thunderbird 3.x, follow these instructions.

1. Select Tools, Options from the top menu.
2. Select the Security button.
3. Select the Passwords tab.
4. Click the Saved Passwords button.
5. Look for the name of the e-mail account that you wish to change. Highlight the account name and click the Remove button. This will allow you to re-enter the password the next time you try to access your mail.
6. Click the OK button.

Thunderbird allow you to view your passwords by clicking on the Show Passwords button on the Password Manager window. It is therefore not a good idea to save passwords on any PC that is used in a multi-user environment, such as an office.

You should see something similar to this the next time you try to retrieve e-mail. If you wish to save the password so that you do not have to re-enter it again, just click the checkbox next to the label "Use Password Manager to remember this password."

Remember that is is not a good idea to save a password if the the PC is used by multiple people. If you accidentally save a password in this situation, just follow these instructions to remove the password from Thunderbird.