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Since my RPi4 is my workstation for a couple of weeks now, I find myself treating this little machine more gently, as in I close programs more often when I don't need them. I noticed I do this also with Thunderbird and not constantly having my email program open is a breeze of fresh air. You should try it.

NB What's also a breeze of fresh air (or rather, a lack of a thunderstorm) is the thing doesn't have a fan.

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For email, I have found that just turning off automatic message fetching helps. For some reason the small amount of friction of having to manually trigger it and then wait a few seconds keeps me from doing it compulsively.

I have thought about that too, but I have several email addresses to check. So when I decide it's "email time", the auto-fetching is exactly what I need at that moment.

If you want a lightweight non-intrusive terminal type email client open, there’s always mutt:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutt_(email_client)

(It can be configured to use the lynx terminal web browser to render html content nicely as text)

Thanks for the tip! I really don't have a problem with Thunderbird in itself, more so with the fact I have a program open that I'm compelled to look into way too often, simply because I have it opened. Just leaving it closed on default and only opening it when I need it does the job for me.

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