When I minimize , thunderbird, firefox etc they dissapears

[jbander]

I want them to go to a panel so I can bring it up again(maximmize)

[jaderiver]

Your minimized applications are likely docked on the panel. Could simply be that the "windows list" group on your mate-panel has been "compressed." Look for a small three-line icon on the panel > right click on it > move > ... then move icon around to see if your applications icons reappear.

[JayBienick]

OK, OK, I know this is a very old post, but just had to put in my reply here!
running a dell laptop, an older LATITUDE E5440, with Linux Mint 20.2, MATE 64 bit
processor = CPU: Topology: Dual Core model: Intel Core i5-4200U bits: 64
type: MT MCP arch: Haswell rev: 1 L2 cache: 3072 KiB flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 18357
Speed: 1653 MHz min/max: 800/2600 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1360 2: 1301 3: 1229 4: 1365

ANYWAY,...I had the same problem here.
I searched and searched around the net trying to find a cure for this problem.
finally found this post, even though it is an older post it helped fix my problem.
I have never registered for this forum before today, just don't like social media much!
That comes with being an old retiree, I suppose. anyway, the thing is I even went as far as to re load Firefox, and still had the same problem when it finished loading.
When I read through this post, and looked at the taskbar, it dawned on me that my webpages were not displaying at all on the taskbar when I minimized them.
BUT.... there was a CALCULATOR APP parked right in the position where the webpages should be displayed!!!!!
A quick drag of the mouse on the calculator app revealed not 1, but about 20 open web pages stacked on top of each other, parked underneath the calculator app!!
And just as described in the post, the dashed lines began to appear as the app was dragged over to the right.
I was then able to restore each page, some very old ones from several days/weeks ago and then close them all by clicking on the dashed lines one at a time.
This explains why my browser had become so lethargic and cumbersome!! All of the pages were still open, just minimized to the desktop.
I suppose I put the calculator app there manually by mistake?? (who knows, I'm old!!)
In fact, I had made careful external backups, thinking the 1TB hard drive was about to crash.
the computer is now back to it's HAPPY fast self again, thanks to a post describing what is going on in this case.
Linux Mint is still WAY BETTER than Windows, (any version) in my humble opinion
jb

[SMG]

OK, OK, I know this is a very old post, but just had to put in my reply here!

It's not old; it's ancient. However, we will let your enthusiastic post be the final response before I lock the thread.

Glad your system is working well again.