Whether you get a little bit of email or a lot it helps to have it organized using a good system. Thunderbird is an email client from the Mozilla Foundation, the same folks that produce Firefox. It's loaded with cool features to help you do email with as little fuss as possible. This 10-part series will cover some of the basics.

Chances are, you have

multiple email addresses

. One for personal, one given to you by the office, one for social networking, perhaps one that's just for family and close friends. Thunderbird makes it easy to set up and manage multiple email accounts. You can even easily set up your free email accounts like Hotmail, Yahoo! and

Gmail in Thunderbird

. Here's how.

Whether you get a little bit of email or a lot it helps to have it organized using a good system. Thunderbird makes it easy to tag and filter your email. This way, you can

keep your inbox organized

and

filter email in Thunderbird

.

Folders are a simple way to

organize your inbox

. You can keep all your work emails straight, your personal emails sorted and your other emails organized. Thunderbird offers a variety of folder options that make it easy to

take control of your inbox

and

keep your email inbox organized

.

Even when you keep your inbox organized with folders, things sometimes go missing. You know you got an email about an upcoming project, but you can't seem to find it.

Searching email in Thunderbird

is a quick way to

recover a lost email

; if you remember a few words, you can punch them into the search box and quickly

find that missing email

.

The Thunderbird address book is where you'll keep all your online and offline contacts organized. If you're making the

switch to Thunderbird

from Outlook, Eudora or another email client you can easily

import your contacts and even your mail and settings

from said email client.

Spam or other junk mail

is the bane of e-mail users everywhere. It seems that spammers never tire of trying to find new ways to infiltrate your inbox. Thunderbird quickly learns what is and what is not spam to make sure you're not bothered by as much of this email annoyance.

Filters are a powerful way to keep your inbox organized. You can tell Thunderbird what to do when you receive an email that meets a filter's requirements; label it, move it to a folder, forward a copy to another account, delete it, mark it as junk and more. You'll reach inbox zero in no time!

E-mail privacy is important to you... and if it's not, it probably should be. Think about all the private and personal information that's sent through email. Think too that an email is considered to be as good as a signature in an increasing number of situations and jurisdictions and email security becomes that much more important. Thunderbird protects your email security and privacy by putting you in control.

Thunderbird is a powerful email client. However, like it's brother Firefox, Thunderbird has a user community creating tons of great add-ons to enhance Thunderbird's functionality. Doc shows us where to

find add-ons for Thunderbird

and how to install them.