I say "reasonably" because there are a few valuable features hiding in plain sight. Thunderbird has no instruction manual, per se, so you might overlook some or all of those features if you don't know where to look -- or even what to look for.

Let's start with solving one of email's great hassles: unread messages getting pushed "below the fold" in your inbox, dropping out of sight because of the arrival of newer messages.

Regular readers know of my fondness for , which act as a kind of snooze button for messages you want to attend to later. But that's not always the most practical way to deal with unread mail.

Indeed, sometimes it's better to have your inbox show you only your unread mail, rather than its usual mixture of read and unread. Thunderbird makes this action easy -- provided you know where to look. Here's the process:

1. Start Thunderbird.