New Thunderbird "user". No "folders", "Contacts" from Mail program, no predictive addresses when starting a new e-mail. How to fix?

You have downloaded and installed Thunderbird and then run it for the first time. Thunderbird is an email client program that facilitates the reading of emails and creating of emails plus a few other things. At this point it is empty, it shows no folders because there are no folders etc.

The first thing you have to do is create a mail account. You would already have an existing email address with eg: your Internet Provider or maybe a free one eg: with gmail or yahoo etc. Currently, you may be accessing those emails by using a browser and logging on to your webmail account. The purpose of an email client program like Thunderbird, is to be able to access the server and download emails so you can see them in Thunderbird. It means if you have more than one email address you can see them all in one view. You can use a Calendar - there is a built in default Calendar, but if you have a gmail calendar then you can hook up to it and display it in Thunderbird. Thunderbird also has Address Books, but obviously they will be empty until you add contacts to it.

• Click on the Menu app icon (3 lines)
• click on 'New Account'
• click on 'Email'

Type your Name, Email Address and Password. Select the checkbox to Remember PAssword Click on 'Continue' At this point Thunderbird checks for server settings as it knows quite a few of the more popular ones. It does offer you the chance to manage the settings via 'Manual Configuration' button. You can set up POP or IMAP accounts - but by default Thunderbird will initially look for IMAP settings, so if you want Pop you will have to manually swap the protocol whilst creating the account.

Once the account is set up, you should check the 'Account Settings' are all set up as desired. eg: Copies & Folders

Once account is created: In left Folder Pane - you will see the name of the account/email address and it will have folders below. Now you have an account, you can create emails and send using that email address.

You mention you have a laptop with Thunderbird installed and you have created a mail account because you can see emails. What type of mail account did you create on laptop ? POP or IMAP ? Not sure?.....On laptop: In 'Account Settings', select name of account in left pane. On the right it will say 'Server Type' and either POP Mail Server or IMAP Mail Server. What does it say ?