> Should I disable the use of the option to "allow windows to search your mail"- if so where is this setting?

This is disabled by default.

Start with https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:Testing:Memory_Usage_Problems

Thank you Wayne for such a detailed process to check for things..I did find right off the bat that my "enable global search and indexer" was turned on..I shut it off and will try to go thru your suggestions. I have a small size for my profile but each time I do anything, compact, move messages, add/delete folders my number of files continues to rise..was working mostly on that..I have several emails coming into TB and it seems to work well and I have had for many years and just trying to keep it working well. again Thank you.