Mine appears in a vertical list of folders down the left hand side.

Thanks for your reply Zenos!

I have Thunderbird Email version 52.3.0 (32 bit) so I don't know if that's why I seem to lack a Trash folder. I just have the ordinary Junk folder, but a friend told me that the Trash folder was something different, as well as useful (I'd always thought the functions of Trash and Junk were the same thing).

Is the Trash folder something one could add-on?

The place for deleted messages has many names: Trash, Bin, Deleted, Deleted Items. Thunderbird's own preference is to call it Trash but in an IMAP-connected account it may take the name given to the equivalent folder on the server. The name chosen might also vary with the language used for Thunderbird. For instance, I am in the UK where the word "trash" is viewed with some disdain, and most of my relevant folders are actually named "Deleted". One of my gmail accounts actually has both "Trash" and "Deleted". I have no idea how these nuances are dealt with in languages other than English.

"Junk" is another matter. "Junk" is Thunderbird's name for what is more commonly named "Spam". The distinction is useful when you're trying to track down why good messages are being treated as bad. The name used will tell you if it's Thunderbird or someone else doing it .

Some users would take the view that all junk or spam email should be automatically deleted, so why not move it all to trash? My take on this is there is a lot of stuff that I don't want or need to read so it goes straight in the bin. But it offers me no threat, so I don't regard it as spam or junk. And all of the spam detectors I have used have made mistakes, so I wish to review what is in Junk or Spam before deleting it, and see what I can do to reverse the classification.

Other material, however, is trying to extract money from me, get me to visit dubious websites, or infect my computer with malware. This more toxic stuff ought to be dealt with and not just deleted unread, IMHO.

Thanks for the explanations. I'll have to ask my friend just what is so useful about a Trash folder, as he seemed amazed that I didn't seem to have one.

My version of ThBird (52.3.0 (32 bit)) has, in the leftside list of folders, Inbox, Drafts, Template, Sent, Archives, Junk, Deleted, and under 'Local Folders' has Junk, Delete, and Outbox. Nothing else.

It's SO confusing when every program, version, edition, or whatever, and the UK and the US, all have their own terminology, some of which means different things in different programs/countries etc - and always being constantly changed, all in the name of 'updating'!

You listed Delete and Deleted there. Both are alternate names for Trash and play the same rôle.

The point is that you may delete a message accidentally (or some agent such as Message Filters does this for you) and the Bin/Trash/Deleted/whatever gives you the option to recover it, but possibly only for a given time limit. 7 or 14 days are typical expiry values. .

A frightening number of email users seem to regard their bin/trash/deleted/whatever folder as a kind of holdall file where stuff is expected to persist indefinitely. This folder, if it is in fact on an IMAP server, might be subject to periodic purging by the email provider. I'd say that if you want to keep something, take a moment to file it in a proper folder, even if it's named "general" or "miscellaneous".

If all is working as it should, every time you delete something in Thunderbird it should be moved to the bin/trash/deleted/whatever folder. It's possible to bypass this, either via Account Settings or by holding down shift when deleting.

Ah - that's another thing: I can't find a way of making new folders in Thunderbird Email, like I could so easily on my old Win Vista Mail.

If I want to make new folders in Thunderbird, so that these would be listed/displayed in the lefthand pane, does this mean another app that one would need to download and install?

Right-click is your friend.

Or, in the old-fashioned menu across the top, File|New|Folder….

Or, in the new-fangled Application Menu, [≡]|New Message|Folder….

In some contexts it will offer a subfolder rather than a folder, but that seems to be a semantic distinction rather than any fundamental functional difference.

If you mean a new email account, that's File|New|Existing Mail Account… or [≡]|New Message|Existing Mail Account….

My problem is that for one of my two email accounts on Thunderbird only the Inbox folder appears. The Draft, Sent and Trash folders have recently disappeared. When I try Subscribe only the Inbox is shown.