Continue with Thunderbird

Thunderbird was created by the people behind Internet program Firefox. It is a good alternative to a program like Windows Live Mail or Microsoft Outlook. Thunderbird can be used in Dutch. It can handle various types of email addresses, such as from Microsoft and Gmail, but also from the provider. No experience with Thunderbird yet? First read in the article ‘Using Thunderbird’ how to add mail accounts to Thunderbird and how sending and receiving mail works.

Thunderbird uses tabs for opened emails. That’s special, because most mail programs don’t do that. By opening messages in different tabs, you can quickly switch between open mails. This can be useful, for example if you need information from one message in another message.

Opening a message in a new tab works like this:

• In Inbox, double-click a message or select a message and press the Enter key.
• The email opens in a new tab. The tabs are at the top of the screen. The active tab is light gray. Click on a tab to open it and read the email.
• Click on the cross of the tab to close it.

Tip: do you exit Thunderbird with tabs open? The program remembers which tabs are open. So next time you can continue where you left off.

Thunderbird automatically blocks so-called ‘external content’ from messages. Those are pictures and the like. You can recognize this by a narrow yellow bar at the top of the screen with the text ‘To protect your privacy, Thunderbird has blocked the content of this message’. Are you sure the message can be trusted? Click on the yellow bar on the right Options and then in the menu on Show external content in this post. All images in the email are now displayed.

You can include people you e-mail with more often in the Thunderbird address book. Their name and email address will then be saved. To send them a new message, type a few letters of their name. The email address is automatically inserted.

Including someone in the address book works like this:

• Double click on a message.
• The message opens in a new tab, which you immediately see in front of you. At the top of the message is the sender with the email address behind it. Click on the star to the right of it.

The asterisk is colored and the person is added to the address book. When you create a new mail, you only have to type the first few letters of the name in the box after ‘To’. The email address will then be entered automatically. If you have several people with the same initial letters, click on the correct person in the drop-down menu.

You have received an e-mail, but you cannot find it in the list of messages. Then use the search function:

• Click on the left if necessary Inbox.
• Your emails are in the middle box. Click in the ‘Filter these messages’ box at the top of the screen.
• Type a keyword and press the Enter key.
• All messages with the keyword in them will be shown. Click on a message to read it.
• To close the search function, click on the cross in the search box.

The keyword will be removed and the entire list of posts will be back.

Thunderbird has an option to archive messages. In other words: remove it from your inbox and store it elsewhere. Useful for messages you don’t need now, but might in the future.

• Double click on an email.
• The message opens in a new tab. Above the message are some buttons. click on To archive.

The message disappears from the Inbox. It has been moved to the ‘Archives’ folder. You will find it in the left bar, in the row under Inbox.