You can change the time that elapses after you select a mail before it is marked as read.

Tools menu > options > Display > advanced. The old outlook express used 10 seconds.

Matt - Thanks for that information.

In Outlook Express, which I used previously for many years, if you deleted an Unread email, it showed up as Unread in the Trash folder. Likewise, if you deleted a Read message, it showed up in the Trash folder as Read.

I am wondering if Thunderbird can be set up to maintain the Read/Unread status in the Trash folder.

I have two email accounts. I have just noticed that the Gmail account works the way desired. The POP3 account does not. Can't figure out why>

You have to fudge, just like Outlook Express did. Change the time from immediately to 10 second the same as outlook express did for marking mail as read. Then that which you mark as deleted will have focus less than 10 seconds and will stay marked as unread.

Matt - Again, thanks for you help. It just doesn't seem to be working on my system. If there is an Unread (bold) email in my Inbox and I click to delete it, it shows up as Read (unbold) in my Trash folder.

Also, for some reason, the Advanced feature doesn't seem to be working as I think it is intended, as follows: If there is an Unread (bold) message in my Inbox and I click to open the email, then immediately close that email, it shows up as Read (unbold) in my Inbox, even though I have indicated 10 second delay to mark as Read.

Correction, it shows up as Unread in the Inbox after reading for less than 10 seconds only if I change Options to open messages in a new Tab rather than in a new message Window or in an Existing Message Window. Nevertheless, when I delete the unread message, it always shows up as read in the Trash folder.

Quite possible that there is a bug in the view message in a window. It gets no attention really as a legacy option. But it is very hard to accept that a message that has been opened in a reading windows is unread.

I could understand the argument if you were using the reading pane (f8) to skim your mail and not wanting some of that marked as read. But really if you open a window with the mail in it to read and then press delete because you do not want that mail, I would argue that is is read.

I agree with your statement " if you open a window with the mail in it to read and then press delete because you do not want that mail, I would argue that it is read." I was simply trying to follow your prior suggestion that I setup the Thunderbird program to maintain that status as unread if not opened for more than, say, 10 seconds.

If I open an email and then delete it, I agree, it should show up as Read in the Trash folder. I'm asking something else: If I delete an Unread message from the Inbox, why does it show up as Read in the Trash folder?

Here's why I am wanting to do this: We all get a bunch of email junk. I just delete those junk emails, as I'm sure you do. In Outlook Express, those Unread and deleted emails show up as Unread in the Trash folder. So every week or so I could just go into the Trash folder, hide the Read messages and delete the Unread messages. This way, I can keep the Read, but deleted, emails for, say, a month, in case there's something in there that I might want to see. I suppose I could send those Read messages to the Archive folder, and then empty it once a month, as a work around.

It just seems strange that ALL emails in the Trash folder would be shown as Read even though many of them are Unread.