You appear to be a new user. I suggest you spend time learning Thunderbird and evaluating the many settings on the settings pane and also the account settings pane, plus also experiment with the View options from menu to change layout and adjust a number of features. In doing that, you will get a good foundation on the many combinations. Welcome.

Hey David, I looked for and found the view menu and have managed to solve problem 1. However, I still can't find a way to close messages. Do you (or anyone else who might be reading this) know if there is a functionality that allows me to close messages without closing thunderbird entirely? I have searched online with various keywords, but not found any answer. I appreciate that you are trying to let me teach myself how to solve this, but I am getting a little frustrated, and not particularly interested in knowing the fine mechanics of this application. Best regards,

Flip

When you open a message, a tab is set on menu bar. Close the tab and it closes the message. If you are going to use Thunderbird, you do need to spend some time learning about it.I am not trying to put you off, but you will learn as you go. Few volunteers here have the time or inclination to provide tutorials. You'll do fine. Take care. :)

Hey David,

Sorry for the late reply. I found a workaround by right-clicking messages and openingen them in a new tab. Thank you for your helpful and patient attitude!

Flip

Am I to assume you have been using the message pane? You can close it from View>Layout>Message Pane or pressing F8, with it closed you can just double click or hit enter to open it in a tab, which you can close with CTRL+w