By Jin Nan Goto

Mozilla Thunderbird is a free open source alternative to proprietary email clients such as Microsoft Outlook.  However a feature is missing from Mozilla Thunderbird that is present in other email clients such as Outlook.  Thunderbird does not have a calendar module.  However the great thing about Thunderbird is that it’s functionality can be expanded with plugins.  Thunderbird is incredibly flexible and the lack of a Calendar is fixed by installing a plugin from Mozilla called Lightning.

Thunderbird With Lightning Installed

Installing Lightning

1. Download the lightning.xpi file from http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/lightning/
2. Open Thunderbird
3. Click “Add-ons” from Thunderbird’s Tools Menu
4. Drag and drop the lightning.xpi file from your desktop (or whatever folder you downloaded it from) onto the add-ons window.  The result will look like this, and you will be prompted you to restart Thunderbird for the add-on to take effect.

If you don’t want to access your calendar from your email client or if you don’t use Thunderbird you can download a stand alone calendar client called Mozilla Sunbird.

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/sunbird/