View and Organize Your Mail

You can see your emails in three ways with Thunderbird:

• In the message pane
• In a new tab
• In a new window

Here's how to do that.

View emails in the message pane

1. Click on the message that you want to view. 
2. Thunderbird displays the message in the message pane.

   

3. To turn off the message pane, press the F8 key. Thunderbird displays only the email list.

   

View emails in a new tab

1. Double-click on the email that you want to view.

   Thunderbird will open the email in a new tab. You can have many emails open in tabs.

   

2. Close the tab by clicking the "X" icon that is at the far right of the tab. 

   

View an email in a new window

1. Select an email that you want to view in a new window.
2. Right-click the email and select Open Message in New Window.

   

   The email opens in a new window.

   

3. Close the email by closing the window.

Print an email

1. Open an email that you want to print.
   

2. Go to the File menu and click Print.
   

Add a new folder to an email account

1. To add a folder to an email account, right-click the account and then select New Folder....

   

2. Give the folder a name and click the Create Folder button.

   

3. Thunderbird adds the folder to the account. If you open your email account in a web browser, the new folder will also be there.

   

Move emails from the Inbox to another folder

1. Select the email that you want to move.
2. Click the email and drag it to another folder.

   or

   Right-click the message, point to Move To, point to the account where you want to move the message, and click the destination folder.

   

Copy emails from the Inbox to another folder

1. Select the email that you want to copy.
2. Right-click the message, point to Copy To, point to the account where you want to copy the message, and click the destination folder.

   

Archive emails

Archiving is an easy and quick way to move emails from your Inbox to an archive folder for future reference. 

1. Select the email that you want to archive.
2. Right-click the message and click Archive.
3. Thunderbird moves the email to your account's archive folder. The name of the archive folder depends on your email provider. Gmail, for example, calls it "All Mail" and GMX calls it "Archives". You should check to see how your email provider handles this.

   

Delete emails

When you tell Thunderbird to delete an email it doesn't actually delete it. Instead, Thunderbird moves the email to your email account's trash folder. By default, emails are permanently deleted using the rules of the email account provider. This is good to know because it means that you can retrieve emails that you accidentally deleted.

1. Select an email that you want to delete.
2. Press the Delete key.
3. Thunderbird will remove the email from your Inbox (or another folder that contains the email) and move it to your email account's trash folder.
4. To see the email in the trash, open your account's Trash folder.

   

5. If you want to permanently delete all the emails that are in the trash, right-click on the Trash folder and click Empty Trash. Note that once you have done this, the deleted emails are gone for good and cannot be recovered.