This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Please stop the same email opening in multiple tabs

  • 1 reply
  • 0 have this problem
  • 8 views
  • Last reply by Toad-Hall

more options

When I am deleting emails, I frequently end up with the same email as most recent in my inbox and thus automatically selected. This opens a new tab with the same email as content and soon my tab section is filled up with multiple versions of the same few emails and the inbox tab pushed off the screen.

Can there not be a setting to open up the existing tab if it has the same content. Or alternatively a way to pin the folder tab (normally inbox) on the left of the tabs permanently.

Other tabbed applications do not open up multiple tabs with the same content.

Yes I could shut the unwanted, repeated tab each time Thunderbird opens it, but I don't want to have to.

This seems like an easy feature? Please??

When I am deleting emails, I frequently end up with the same email as most recent in my inbox and thus automatically selected. This opens a new tab with the same email as content and soon my tab section is filled up with multiple versions of the same few emails and the inbox tab pushed off the screen. Can there not be a setting to open up the existing tab if it has the same content. Or alternatively a way to pin the folder tab (normally inbox) on the left of the tabs permanently. Other tabbed applications do not open up multiple tabs with the same content. Yes I could shut the unwanted, repeated tab each time Thunderbird opens it, but I don't want to have to. This seems like an easy feature? Please??

All Replies (1)

more options

A bug enhancement request has been made regarding this issue. It's an old request. No idea why it's not been fixed. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=551363

Currently, if you open email in tab and you leave it open in tab and later need to read email again then select the tab which is already displaying the email. The mail tab - the folder you have selected will always be on the far left which means it's easy to locate when you want to select it to get back to the Folder Pane view.

Any tab can be closed by using the 'x' displayed in the tab area or right clickon that tab and select 'Close tab'. You can also close all opened tabs in one go by right clicking on the first tab eg: Inbox and selecting 'Close all other tabs'.

For email opened in tab - If you move that email or delete that email and you want the tab to close automatically then check this setting:

  • Settings > General
  • scroll down to 'REading and Display'
  • select checkbox 'Close message window/tab on move or delete.