This is indicative of a person that opens emails in tabs but never closes them. To fix the mess you have scroll back to the Inbox tab, right click it and select Close Other Tabs. Now start closing the message tab after reading the message. Or better yet, turn on the Message Pane by pressing F8 and stop opening all your mail in tabs.

Thank you so-o-o much! I will try this. I am older and began my career using a non electric typewriter.....in the '50's! So you can imagine what a steep learning curve I am going through. I will certainly try your suggestions to the best of my ability and thank you very much for the help.

Well, we do have this crazy convention where an X in one place means delete and in other places it means close. You can't blame newcomers for distrusting this symbol, and therefore leaving tabs open.