Help tweaking a setting in Thunderbird mail client

[Kevster89]

I use Thunderbird as my preferred mail client.

However, one thing I don't like is how when I am in the inbox, anytime I click on a message it always opens beneath. This is not that big of a deal, but what bugs me is that the message is then counted as a "read message." Therefore, like I'm sure many of you do as well, I constantly have to secondary click --- drag cursor down to "mark" --- then click "as read". I have to do this in order to mark it as "unread" so I remember to reply to it later.

Anyone know how to fix this so if I single click (or tap) the cursor over and email in my inbox, it will either not open up beneath and not be marked as read, or still be opened up beneath (in the inbox) but not be marked as read?

The second option would be preferred, but either would be better than the current default setting I have.

Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks.

 

[Kevster89]

.... any help? ... please?

 

[sickmacdoc]

While I can see what you are requesting I have to say that I hope they don't modify the current behavior myself! When I click on a message it is because I want to read it- and am having trouble understanding why I would click on it if I didn't want to read it in the first place- in other words why I wouldn't just click only on those I wanted to read.

I realize I am missing something in your desire to do so, so don't take this wrong. I am sure you have your reasons- but I just hope they don't change it to some thing where I have to double click on them or command-click on them or something to just read them! I just have never seen a method to achieve the results you are looking for.

The current method seems right to me- in that I read the message and it is marked "read". If, after reading it, I decide that I would like to respond to it later I do one of two things- either hit respond to open a new document which I then immediately close so it is saved in Drafts as a highlighted message for later, or just go into the Message menu and click the "Mark-->As Read" to take away the checkmark and have it highlighted again.

 

[Kevster89]

The reason I don't like this is because when I delete an email and the one below it is marked as unread, then it opens it and marks it as read.

I feel like because of this I have to uncheck "mark - As read" a good 50 times every day while at work or at home. It's a huge pain in the ass.

Have you not experienced this? I wish there was a way to click once and have it open below the inbox list, like it already does, but then not automatically open when deleting an email above a new one.

 

[djembe1]

I'd like to suggest a place to look, but forgive me if it's not on your T-bird. My 10 hour old iMac is still in its box - I've been clearing a space on my desk next to the PC whose contents will be sucked dry and moved to the iMac + Fusion. I was chilling for a few minutes and searched for "thunderbird" to get ideas on how I'd handle email on the iMac.

On the PC, the Options / Advanced / General has a check box for "Wait __ seconds before marking a message as read". If you use that, you could get a grace period to move the selection before it marks the email as "Read". Also, between The "Subject" and "Sender" columns is a dot that if clicked changes between "read" and "unread". I don't know if these are in the Mac version, but you could check.

 

[Kevster89]

I'd like to suggest a place to look, but forgive me if it's not on your T-bird. My 10 hour old iMac is still in its box - I've been clearing a space on my desk next to the PC whose contents will be sucked dry and moved to the iMac + Fusion. I was chilling for a few minutes and searched for "thunderbird" to get ideas on how I'd handle email on the iMac.

On the PC, the Options / Advanced / General has a check box for "Wait __ seconds before marking a message as read". If you use that, you could get a grace period to move the selection before it marks the email as "Read". Also, between The "Subject" and "Sender" columns is a dot that if clicked changes between "read" and "unread". I don't know if these are in the Mac version, but you could check.

Thanks so much for pointing that out! The option change you mentioned can be performed the same way on a Mac. You solved my problem and now Thunderbird is just how I want it!

Thanks again!