You will only get volunteer responses here.

Click on View | Layout and make sure "Folder Pane" is checked.

I checked it. I don't see where this supplied me a "go to inbox" option.

What do you mean by 'go to inbox'? Can you do a screenshot of what you see and describe what is missing? We're trying to understand so we can assist. Thank you.

I checked it. I don't see where this supplied me a "go to inbox" option.

It doesn't give you a specific "Go to Inbox" option. It gives you a list of all folders, including the Inbox, any of which you can select. Such an option has never existed in Thunderbird since it was first released in the early 2000s. I think we can safely assume by now that we will never see it. Personally, I have never needed that option and it wouldn't be useful to me.

I may have found the answer myself, which no "volunteer" was able to answer for me. There is a little down arrow at the extreme right of the bar with all the tabs, and it seems to include an inbox option at the top of a long list. Lin did not tell me about that little down arrow. But I guess problem solved; although it is hard to know about that little arrow.

I don't know why someone at thunderbird recently decided that every time we open an email that it causes a tab to be made. I think we should have the option whether a tab comes up or not. Is there such a place to indicate such an option?

Ctrl+1 to return to Inbox.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/keyboard-shortcuts-thunderbird#w_moving-around-thunderbird

This is no recent development, it's an option you have always been able to control.

In Windows, go to Tools | Settings | Reading and Display | Open messages in. You will see your various options.

Ctrl+1 to return to Inbox. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/keyboard-shortcuts-thunderbird#w_moving-around-thunderbird

Cool, thanks! Never knew that. Takes you to tab #1, which isn't necessarily the Inbox, but still useful. And Ctrl + 2 to 8 will take you to the next several tabs, and Ctrl + 9 takes you to the last.

I should review that list of shortcuts - I might find some I can use.

Reply to Lin: In windows 7, I have found no "reading and display" link yet. I am studying the small picture I have not noticed before in your answer. I found it. It has to be one or the other. Thanks.

But I don't really know what "in windows, go to tools" means. The picture said to go from thunderbird to settings, which I found under "tools" in thunderbird.

I don't know how the "open in tab" option came on.

control 1: except this time I had to press it twice to get back to the inbox.

Reply to Lin: In windows 7, I have found no "reading and display" link yet. I am studying the small picture I have not noticed before in your answer. I found it. It has to be one or the other. Thanks. But I don't really know what "in windows, go to tools" means. The picture said to go from thunderbird to settings, which I found under "tools" in thunderbird. I don't know how the "open in tab" option came on.

Perhaps I wasn't clear: I'm talking about running Thunderbird in Windows. All the settings I mentioned are Thunderbird settings, not Windows settings.

It would be a good idea for you, in your initial posts, to specify your computer platform, operating system, and Thunderbird version so we don't have to guess. Unless otherwise specified, I'll always assume that it's one of the most recent version of all of those things. Windows 7 stopped being sold 10 years ago (but I still have one Windows 7 computer.)