Until Thunderbird knows the proper sender and receiver server names, and you tell it your user name and password, you won't be able to send or receive email. Out of the box, Thunderbird will try to use a new feature called "Account hub", which keeps a database of email services, and supplies the server information, if known, from that database. I have had good luck with this feature, but I have heard that some people have had trouble with it. Sounds like you're one of them. So, go to Tools |Settings | General | Account Hub and turn of the option "Create accounts in the new Account Hub" for now. Before you proceed, you need to do some research and arm yourself with the proper settings for your email service, plus your user name and password. The settings should, hopefully, be on their web site somewhere. I tried looking up "websitename.com" and "sunset-daily.com" but I nothing came up. The information you will need is: - Incoming email server name (choose IMAP unless you have a reason not to) - Incoming email server port (probably 993) - Incoming Connection security (probably SSL/TLS or STARTTLS) - Incoming Authentication method (probably Normal or plain password) - Outgoing (SMTP) email server name - Outgoing email server port (probably 465) - Outgoing server connection security (probably SSL/TLS) - Outgoing server authentication method (probably Normal password) Once you have all that information in front of you, choose Tools | Account settings | Add new account and follow the prompts.