Thunderbird Message Reading Order
Wednesday, July 27th, 2011
I finally went looking for one of my pet peeves with the Thunderbird email tool, and the Internet did not disappoint.
I like seeing my message list with the newest items at the top of the list, yet I normally read them oldest to newest. When I finish reading a message and delete it, Thunderbird’s default behavior is to select and display the message below the previous selection in the list. My newest-at-the-top sort order causes the next older message to be displayed, which is probably the one I looked at just prior to the one I deleted. I want it to select the next newer message.
Turns out there is an option for this in Thunderbird’s config options.
Go to Tools->Options…, Advanced tab, Config Editor….
Change the option mail.delete_matches_sort_order to true.
Now if only someone would add the Reply/Reply All toggle that I’ve been pining for….