How to Use Calendar Invites From Outlook in Thunderbird

With more than 36 percent market share, as of January 2010, Microsoft's Outlook family of email programs have long been the most widely used email system. One factor that certainly contributes to Outlook's popularity and widespread use is the wealth of features that it provides, including those that go beyond basic email functionality. One such feature is Outlook's Calendar function. Individuals using this feature can send and receive calendar invites, keeping schedules synced. For Thunderbird users, these invites can be a nuisance, as Thunderbird does not natively support Outlook Calendar invites. With a free add-on, and a few simple steps, you can add this ability to Thunderbird.

Instructions

1. Open your web browser and download Lightning from the Mozilla web site. Lightning is a free extension that adds the Mozilla Sunbird calendar to Thunderbird.

2. Open Thunderbird, click Tools > Extensions and press the "Install" button.

3. Navigate to the location that you saved the downloaded .xpi file, select it and press "Okay."

4. Click "Install Now" in the "Software Installation" window that appears. Thunderbird will proceed with the installation, which should only take a minute or so, and you will now be able to use Calendar invites from Outlook.

References

• Campaign Monitor: Email Client Popularity
• MozillaZine: Extenstions - Thunderbird

Resources

• Mozilla: Lightning Project Home