Mailbox in Thunderbird

To use your mailbox in Thunderbird, access to the KU Leuven SMTP server is required

Since 24 February 2023, not all students have access to smtps.kuleuven.be by default anymore. If you are unable to send emails after following the instructions outlined in our documentation, then you may have to register on https://ulyssis.org/smtp/ to (re)gain SMTP access.

When you create a ULYSSIS account, you get an email address: username@ulyssis.org. Usually, this address gets forwarded to your KU Leuven email address. However, you can choose to use it as your own ULYSSIS mailbox.

It is possible to check this mailbox via https://webmail.ulyssis.org. However, it is far more convenient and efficient to use a standalone email client. This article will explain the process of adding a mailbox to the Thunderbird client.

Thunderbird

Thunderbird is a free and open source email client made by Mozilla. It is available for download at https://thunderbird.net. You can then install the downloaded file like you would install any other application. Once installed, launch Thunderbird and configure a mailbox using the steps below.

Adding a ULYSSIS mailbox to Thunderbird

If this is the first mailbox being added to Thunderbird, the following pop-up should come up:

If the pop-up did not appear, or this is not your first mailbox; click the email button (highlighted in blue in the screenshot below) under the "Set Up Another Account" section:

Once the pop-up is present, proceed by entering the login details for your mailbox. The first step is to fill in your name, email address and password (this email address should be your ULYSSIS username followed by @ulyssis.org):

Next, the button "Configure manually..." on the bottom left will become clickable (as seen on the screenshot above). When this button is clicked, the pop-up should look like this:

Now, fill in the information as follows:

Manual settings

	INCOMING	OUTGOING
Protocol:	IMAP	SMTP
Server:	mail.ulyssis.org	smtps.kuleuven.be
Port:	993	443
SSL:	SSL/TLS	SSL/TLS
Authentication:	Autodetect	Autodetect
Username:	ULYSSIS username	r/m/s/u number
Notice the ports used to configure a ULYSSIS mailbox are not automatically recognized by Thunderbird. This means they should be entered manually instead of using the drop-down.

The "Re-test" button on the bottom right of the following screenshot is used to validate the settings. When pressed, Thunderbird will try to connect to the mail server. When successful, the pop-up should look like this:

If this test succeeds, the pop-up will close when the "Done" button has been clicked. After the pop-up closes, a mailbox should be added to the left sidebar of the main Thunderbird window. By clicking on the inbox tab, your emails should start showing up (as seen in the last screenshot). After finishing up this setup, your mailbox should synchronize automatically.

When sending the first email after configuration, Thunderbird might show a pop-up: "Enter your password for r0000000 on smtps.kuleuven.be:". It is really important to enter your KU Leuven password (the password used for central login), otherwise your email will not be sent.