Thunderbird “Nesting” Issue

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[LHiggins]

Hello,

I’ve had an annoying problem with TB  v102.9.1 ( and earlier versions) on my Win 10 22H2 laptop. It seems that no matter what I do – it shows incoming email in a nested way so that I can’t see all of the emails – just the first one, and I need to break open the list to see others.

Here’s what I mean. In this first shot (names removed) the last email has a > symbol next to it:

That indicates that if I click on the > and break open the conversation, there is another email there:

I want to see both of those without having to break out the conversation, but can’t seem to figure out what to turn off or on to do that. I have threaded unchecked in the settings:

I have the same version of TB on my other laptop – same Win 10 22H2 – and it lists both of the emails separately without any grouping.

Any ideas on how to possibly change that behavior? I find it very annoying and have actually missed emails when I wasn’t paying attention to that little symbol.

Thanks!

LH

• This topic was modified 1 year, 11 months ago by LHiggins. Reason: Not the images I had uploaded that are showing??

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I have the latest version of TBird, but see if this works
Try (in the top menu) View>Sort By>unthreaded

You can sort by sender if you want all the same sender together, but you will see all of them.

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Hi PK and thanks.

I do have both laptops set up the same way – and both say View>Sort By>Unthreaded as you suggested. One shows them as I described above, and the other just lists each separately – which is what I want. I can’t see any other option that is different. Will keep looking – thanks!

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Thank you!

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Thank you! Setting View > Sort By > Unthreaded worked fine. (It had been set to Threaded, presumably by default.) I had been looking in TB Settings, but to no avail.

TB 115.7.0, Win 11 23H2.

Cheerz.

 

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1 – Check: View > Threads > [all the selections]: (I have only ‘All’)

2. It is possible that the index file (Inbox.msf) is corrupted. (But this may not be associated.)

In the left (Folder Pane) panel:
Right-click on Inbox > Properties > Repair folder
After this, you may need to re-establish the Column selections and sequence. And maybe other settings too; I don’t know the comprehensiveness of msf functions.

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Hi Paul and thanks! I’ll need to take a closer look after the holiday, but I have now noticed similar behavior on both laptops. Maybe that is just the way some messages are displayed. I’ll go back and make sure all are unthreaded and see if that helps – or if I can figure out what else may be going on.

But a question – if I do choose to repair – will that delete emails that are already there? Guess I’ll make a backup before I start that so I don’t lose any.

Thanks for the reply! Have a great day!

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” will that delete emails that are already there?”
No.

The implementation/structure of emails in Thunderbird is:
– the emails within an email folder are all ‘smushed together’ in one OS file. In the situation we are discussing here, the file is named just Inbox; there is no filetype.
– but associated with each [OS] emails file is a ‘folder index’ (.msf) file; here, Inbox.msf.

The Repair function does a complete/fresh rebuild of the MSF file.

One safely can delete (via Explorer) a MSF file, and when TB Opens the mail folder it will discover that the index is nonexistent, and will rebuild it. The only consequence (besides the time taken to rebuild, usually small) is that the new index has only the (TB) default settings; any user-specified changes are gone.

In all of this rebuilding, the underlying file (Inbox) only is read in order to extract that essential identifying data of each email which is needed for the index (.msf) file.

The relationship of (TB) emails/email folders to (OS) files and folders can be confusing, and is ‘beyond the scope’ of the discussion now.

2 users thanked author for this post.

windbg, LHiggins

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Your screenshot showing ‘Thread’ unchecked is of the menu to select Columns. Below, I’ve shown 3 screenshots:

1) ‘Thread’ is checked so the column appears (on the left side for me).
2) Messages are listed as UN-threaded in the middle view (default for my folder).
3) After clicking the ‘Thread’ column header (the * symbol), the listing at the bottom is now in  threaded view.  Note that the thread is expanded to show the message I had highlighted.

I recommend you keep the Thread column displayed so you can toggle back and forth as necessary.  Some TB folder views, such as some Search Results, may open ‘threaded’ by default, so it helps to be able to readily toggle to the view you want.

Also, you’ll want to verify your chosen options under the VIEW menu items.  The screenshot below shows that I’ve selected the options to Sort by “UN-threaded” and to show “ALL Threaded” messages.

Play around with these settings.  Let me know if it gives you what you wanted.  ~RonR

 

 

1 user thanked author for this post.

LHiggins

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Hi Ron and thanks for the reply Sorry to be late getting back to you – long weekend – LOL!

Thanks for the info – I have checked and the menus seem to be correct. And I did as you suggested and turned on the threaded column so that I can sort of keep track of how I want to view them.

Thanks again for the help – I’ll keep an eye on how things work with the threaded and unthreaded and see how it goes.

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