In general, yes this is possible. However, you may exceed the max. no. of cached connections to the server your email provider allows. E.g. Yahoo is particularly sensible with this.

I am not talking about accessing the account via another email provider - I am talking about having Thunderbird installed on two different computers and using it to access the SAME Thunderbird account.

I should have been clearer in my initial question, so that's on me.

There is no such thing as a 'Thunderbird' account. Thunderbird is an application, so it does not provide email addresses, nor the service to transmit emails. But Thunderbird can be used with your existing email address and service provider to send, receive, sort and search your email messages.

I'll try again. The company I work for uses Thunderbird. Can I have Thunderbird installed on two computers and access the exact same account (as in joeschmoe@joeschmoe.com) at the same time?

I do not use Thunderbird myself but my boss does and he works from two different locations - home and work. He uses Thunderbird at home, while here at work he is using something else to access his work emails which causes all sorts of issues. When he's here he can't access anything he already opened and read at home.

I obviously know nothing whatsoever about Thunderbird. I use Gmail and have no issues with it. What I am trying to do is get my boss set up so that he does not have to ask me to forward emails to him whenever he is in the office. It eats up a lot of time.

Your wording was confusing. Yes, he can access from two places. You implied he would be doing it concurrently. If this is an imap account, there would be no problems.

yeah, as a gmail user (and not even remotely tech-savvy person) this stuff is all gibberish to me, but I absolutely appreciate the help.

so here's the next rabbit hole to fall into: are you saying Thunderbird can just be installed on the second computer and he can simply log in? because the so-called "tech guy" here ruled that out completely.

is there any kind of guide to how this can/should be done that you could point me to?

Maybe your tech guy also misunderstood your question. Since Thunderbird is the email client your company use, it could be installed the same way. He would need to have the server information that your tech support staff uses for office setups so it could be done at home. As you stated earlier, your company uses Thunderbird and his home computer is just one more to set up. Get him the info (incoming server and port number, outgoing server and port number, and he can do the setup. Since he already uses Thunderbird, that may be all he needs.

no, as dopey as I may be coming off here, my boss and I were both clear about simply having T-Bird on 2 computers and accessing the same account using it. his response was "can't be done".

PS - it is on his HOME computer already. the work computer is where we'd need to install it.

Well, it's quite common. It isn't Thunderbird that is the issue; it's email in general. If you have the setup information for an email account, you can set it up on an infinite number of computers. For example, I have my email account on my PC, on my laptop, and on my phone. Thunderbird itself is not a factor. If you've ever heard of people having access to their office email also on their phone, then you have proof that it can be done.

You've heard of it. I've heard of it. But someone heard this simple question and nonetheless came up with "can't be done" for whatever reason.

Okay. Well, at least you now know. It's doable and it's easy. Good luck.

Thanks for your time and have a great weekend.

You're very welcome. Please mark this thread closed so it can be removed from the unresolved list. Thanks.

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