YOU’LL NEED THIS

MOZILLA THUNDERBIRD (Free, Windows/Mac/Linux) Version 115 of the free email client, which you can download from thunderbird.net

THUNDERBIRD HAS JUST BEEN UPDATED—the tabs of its old interface are still there, but you can hide them if you only have one component open. There’s also a column of icons that switch between email, calendar, address book, and more; a handy search box in the title bar; and a discreet menu that saves you from picking your way through the full menu bar.

It’s not just redesign for design’s sake, though, as there are other changes that will make an appreciable difference to the way you manage your email. Chief among them is the new tags filter, which lets you more quickly identify particular messages. Say, for example, that you want to tag every security alert you receive as ‘Important’. You can apply that particular tag to a message simply by pressing 1 when the message is open. You can apply a tag for Work, Personal, To-do, or Later by pressing 2, 3, 4, or 5 respectively.

Tags themselves aren’t a new feature, but the ‘tags folder’ mode is (see annotation) . This lets you quickly isolate messages that have a specific tag. Even if you’re only using the default tags and the five preset shortcuts, this is a quick and easy way to focus on work messages during the day, personal messages at home, or emails you’ve not had time to deal with earlier.

If the default tags don’t fit the way you work with Thunderbird, you can change them. To do so, click the three-lines button again, then Settings. Click ‘General’ in the sidebar, then scroll down to Tags in the window’s main pane, and click Edit.