Prevent duplicate message tabs – switch to an already open message tab

[cecilia78]

I would like to suggest a small but, in everyday use, very helpful improvement to Thunderbird's tab handling.

I prefer to open individual emails in separate tabs. However, when I double-click a message in the message list that is already open in a tab, Thunderbird opens the same message again in another new tab.

It would be much more convenient if Thunderbird first checked whether this particular message is already open in one of the existing tabs.

If the message is already open, Thunderbird should simply switch to and activate that tab. If the message is not yet open, it should open a new tab as it does now.

Ideally, this could be implemented as an optional setting, for example:

“Reuse an existing tab if the message is already open.”

This would preserve the current behaviour for users who prefer it, while preventing users who keep several messages open for their work from accidentally accumulating multiple tabs containing exactly the same email.

For example:

1. I double-click Email A → Thunderbird opens Email A in a new tab.
2. I return to the Inbox and work with other messages.
3. Later, I double-click Email A again → Thunderbird recognizes that Email A is already open and switches to its existing tab instead of opening Email A a second time.

This seems like a relatively small usability improvement, but it would make working with multiple message tabs considerably clearer and more efficient.

[Schneeeule]

When I click on an email in the inbox, it is displayed in an enlarged view in a new tab.
However, if a tab already exists that shows this email in no new tab should be opened.

[Jon]

Thanks for submitting an idea to the Mozilla Connect community! Your idea is now open to votes (aka kudos) and comments.

[muhMoz11]

I frequently end up with multiple tabs for the same email. I would rather be able to choose in the settings whether clicking on the same email more than once opens a new tab for the same email, or just displays the email with only a single tab for that email appearing in the tab bar.

[Jon]

Thanks for submitting an idea to the Mozilla Connect community! Your idea is now open to votes (aka kudos) and comments.

[Jon]

Thanks for submitting an idea to the Mozilla Connect community! Your idea is now open to votes (aka kudos) and comments.

[wsm]

I just merged two other ideas to this one. 

Please upvote this idea.

[Toad-Hall]

I posted this as a bug several years ago:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1699801