You maybe need to be clear about the difference between an email account and an email client. An ''account'' is the facility to send and receive emails. The facility is provided by a company or organisation. Some accounts are free, some you pay for, some you get because you're an employee. Each account has a unique address -- the 'name@company' characters to which you send a message. A ''client'' is a bit of software that runs on your computer and lets you read, write and manage your emails. Thunderbird is a client, as is Outlook, and there are many others. Again, some are free and some you pay for. Note that you don't have to use a client at all. Most companies that provide email accounts also provide the means to read and write messages online, just using their website. With Thunderbird you can manage your mail for any number of accounts. If the account is with one of the major providers you can add it automatically: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/automatic-account-configuration If Thunderbird doesn't recognise the provider you can input the settings manually: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/manual-account-configuration I hope this helps.