No. Thunderbird is a desktop client. You would need to set it up with every new device.

I am kind of surprised that anyone would change computer so often that setting up an email client was seen as a major chore.

Outlook.com, as its name implies, has a web interface ("webmail"). You don't need to use a mail client to work with it.

For example: https://outlook.live.com/owa/

Though, like most users of this forum, I'd rather stick pins in my eyes than use webmail. ;-)

Sorry needed to update as I did not finish first sentence.

Yes, Thunderbird works like Outlook, it is an email client. So you have to set up on each computer. Webmail access only needs a browser, but can need you to logon to several websites. Gmail webmail do offer a means of collating everything, but I'm not suggesting it as an option that would necessarilly suit your needs. You may not want everyone to see everything. You may not feel comfortable with the idea that gmail has copies of all your correspondence.

After installing Thunderbird, the first time it is run it will create a default profile and ask you to create a mail account.

You can add any number of email address which Thunderbird calls mail accounts. 'Menu icon' > 'New Message' > 'Existing Mail Account' You can use Pop or Imap or a mix of both. Mail accounts/email addresses are shown on the left side one above the other. see example image of Folder Pane.

You will notice there is also 'Local Folders' mail account. This is a special mail account created by default. It contains the 'Outbox' which is used by all mail accounts when 'Send Later' is used. It can also be used as general storage for any emails or you want to keep emails, but intend to stop/remove an email address. OR you have an imap mail account and want to get some emails off the server but keep access to them.

If you have new computer. After installing Thunderbird, instead of creating new mail accounts, filters address books etc, you can copy paste the User Account\Appdata\Roaming\'Thunderbird' folder which contains all data including 'profiles' folder and 'profiles.ini' file, from one computer to another.

Or just recreate imap mail accounts and copy paste filters to profile, or use an addon import tool to move stuff. Depending upon the situation, it does not take that long. You do not necessarilly have to go through the process of recreating all the mail accounts.

Thank you all, i manded up and download Thunderbird and stopped faffing around!