I have not used Owl, but I have used their other, similar, product, Exquilla. From my experience, one of these addons is vital to access Exchange transparently. There is a fee, but it is not excessive. However, there is a free product, Davmail. I have used it successfully with Exchange accounts in Thunderbird as well. It's a bit more complex to set up, but it works well, although it doesn't provide the richer Exchange experience. The fee for Owl is less than one U.S. dollar per year. So, the choice is to pay the annual fee ($10.79 US), implement Davmail, or switch to another email client that supports Exchange.

I don't appreciate being blackmailed into subscription services. Thunderbird has been working fine with that account literally for YEARS with no need for Owl or anything else. Until a couple of weeks ago.

Everyone thinks their own subscription service is just a small monthly fee. No big deal. But they add up. It's as if the current generation has no concept of addition any more.

Is Owl installed? If so, then you've been benefiting from it, as Thunderbird does not support Exchange and never has. Their fee is because they put effort into building a valuable service that many happily pay for. You write as though software should be free, with developers absorbing all costs. Do you really believe that is fair to them?

No, I write as though something that has been working as is without any problem for many years is now holding my email ransom for a SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE that never ends. I pay for software, always have, always will, and resent the snarky response. Thanks for the help but please don't reply any further if you're just going to be a jerk.

The account was set up as IMAP, not Owl, and always worked before. When something that always worked suddenly stops working and I'm told I need to start paying a subscription fee to get it back, I consider that a sleazy business practice, no matter that the fee is "only" $11 a year. I'm in over my head with people demanding never-ending subscription fees for things I used to be able to buy outright and use for as long as my own needs dictated.

The account was set up as IMAP, not Owl, and always worked before. </blockquote>

Imap support has not been pulled out of Thunderbird, it's still working fine. If your Exchange server has not been upgraded and had its configuration changed while this upgrade happened, it should still allow Thunderbird to work with Imap. Ask your Exchange administrator for confirmation. If you want me to help you to test that, it's possible, but if you want to take an attitude, that's your call. Thunderbird has NEVER worked with Exchange native protocol without a paid add-on, so if your Exchange administrator is refusing to do the extra mile to accommodate non Microsoft clients with standard protocols (a very common attitude), there is nothing available out of a paid add-on. And as far as I know, there is NO free mail clients that can connect to Exchange using the native protocol without a paid add-on suscription based.

That 'attitude' is totally with you. You accuse a vendor of attempting to extort you and holding your email ransom when, in fact, that vendor is offering you the only workable solution for Exchange in Thunderbird. It's either that or Davmail - and Owl is probably much easier to implement. Owl did not create your problem, so blaming them may make you feel better, but solves nothing.

Hi david,

May I raise my related question, please? Thunderbird lost import from Outlook after I had to change the password. I was unable to get advice about it. I now added Owl.

I uninstalled DavMail, but I still get the DavMail panel trying to connect me.

Do I need to start again with a fresh Thunderbird download to add Owl to it? If so, do I need to delete the existing Thunderbird and would that mean that I lose all the complex populated local folder structure?

Or can Owl override DavMail without my drastic end solution?

Thank you for giving us another go, Ulrike

You should not need to reinstall Thunderbird. It's been a few years since I made that Davmail switch, but since you removed the sofware, all that should be remaining is the account setting. I 'think' OWL can just replace Davmail for the account, but you might check with them first. I have used Exquilla, which is similar, but I don't want to give the wrong advice.

Thank you, David. loosing my local folder structure and stored emails was my worry. But I could stick with the version of Thunderbird, as long as I got rid of DavMail from within Thunderbird. Then Owl took over seamlessly. Just needing to work out how to set a standard format and size for sending emails. I should not have to do it from scratch for every email?

Ulrike

Not sure what you mean by format and size, as font is the primary setting, plus HTML vs plain text. Yes, once set, it doesn't need changing for each message.

I found it in Settings, under 'Language & Appearance. :)

PS I have three identical message panels, complete from Inbox to local folders. How can I get rid of the two extra ones? Ulrike

Could you please post screenshots of all three? I'm unclear on what you're asking.

Thank you, david, for staying with me.

The attached image shows that I have one item for 'Local Folders' and my email account three times. All correct in all detail with each listing 124 items. I am on OWL now for importing from Outlook and would like to get rid of the first two. Highlighting them does not give me the option of deleting them. I would also be scared of causing a problem. Do you know what might be a sensible way of dealing with it? With thanks, Ulrike

Those appear to be accounts. Highlight, rightclick, select 'settings' and then scroll down slightly to 'account actions' and that menu has the option to remove account. click there and the account will be removed. Repeat for each.

Perfect! Thank you, david, I am back Thunderbird the way I love it.

Thank you again, Ulrike

I'm pleased that all went well. Free drinks all around.  :)

You've worked hard on this, so I encourage doing a backup of the profile immediately, either with Tools>Export (but this isn't recommended for large profiles) or by shutting down Thunderbird and copying from c:\users\<yourID>\appdata\roaming\thunderbird (be sure to do this when Thunderbird is NOT running.)

Perfect! Thank you, david, I am back with Thunderbird the way I love it.

Thank you again, Ulrike