Grouping e-mails by sender and sorting list by date like WLM

[Metro1337]

Hello Thunderbirder,

there is only 1 feature which keeps me from switching to Thunderbird. First of all - yes. I have searched for this and I have found threads which were created over 10 years ago suggesting exactly this. As of right now, I'm using the Windows Live Mail client on Windows 7. When switching to Thunderbird I discovered some new great features, for example IMAP-Idle (which unfortunately is not really working for me using a Hotmail Address though, no idea why) from which I hoped will keep me using Thunderbird. After a few days though I found myself to be more often using WLM because it's just more straightforward while having a minimalist design.

I'd like to bring the grouping suggestion up again to make it the same Windows Live Mail has. In WLM it's looking like this

> http://i.imgur.com/4W90Gbb.png

In Thunderbird, if you enable grouping it's making such groups only if the title is the exact same (I guess), which results in the mails looking like this (pretty much, no difference)

> http://i.imgur.com/ZLmklv3.png

However, when you enable "grouping by sorting" (sorry if it's wrong, don't know the exact English term) and then sort it by sender it's looking way better.

> http://i.imgur.com/0P3mfTM.png

The problem with that however is that all emails are sorted by the sender now and grouped, NOT by the date anymore (which I prefer way more). That's why I'd love to have it exactly the same way Windows Live Mail has it where groups are made by the title, the sender and e-mails are still sorted by date. Whenever I'm creating a support ticket or just receive multiple Newsletter e-mails or do a lot of conversations that's so MUCH better to have it all sorted and easily to find.

What do you guys think? No one else missing it in Thunderbird? Or have I actually missed something and there IS a way to do it exactly the same way?

Thank you for reading.

Mike.

[alta88]

Doing a Group By sort will result in the items within the group being always (hardcoded) sorted by ascending date. It seems intuitive, to me, to want the outer grouping (sender) list sorted by alpha. Note that you can do (certain) secondary sorts, ie sort by date column first, then by sender column to end up with date order within sorted sender. Otherwise it's unclear what view result is desired.

The problem is that the sorting options and feedback of sort state UX is very poor. You can't easily keep the sender sort and then date sort az or za without hundreds of clicks . Try this extension:
http://totalmessage.mozdev.org/

[Metro1337]

Doing a Group By sort will result in the items within the group being always (hardcoded) sorted by ascending date. It seems intuitive, to me, to want the outer grouping (sender) list sorted by alpha. Note that you can do (certain) secondary sorts, ie sort by date column first, then by sender column to end up with date order within sorted sender. Otherwise it's unclear what view result is desired.

The problem is that the sorting options and feedback of sort state UX is very poor. You can't easily keep the sender sort and then date sort az or za without hundreds of clicks . Try this extension:
http://totalmessage.mozdev.org/

Thanks a lot! I'll certainly try to look into this extension the next weekend because of my exams this week. However, having a built-in, easier / faster method of accomplishing that would be way better - especially for none experienced or just lazy users (like me ).