You already know how to turn Thunderbird into the ultimate Gmail/IMAP client, but lots of folks are using Microsoft Outlook on a daily basis (whether by personal or company choice.) The How-To ...

Add and use Gmail account in Outlook.com to access Gmail and Outlook simultaneously. It is available for Office 365 and Outlook Premium users only.

Using Outlook 2007, I connect to a SmarterMail 5.1 server for my email using an IMAP connection. I set up an email account.