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How to turn off conversation view in Thunderbird?

BeginAgain
Making moves

1. I'm using Thunderbird 115.3.3 supernova. It has this conversation view like Gmail brought in where it nests all the messages.

I find it very confusing to use, how do I turn it off? I went through all the settings but I can't find any option.

1. Conversation view.png

2. When I do a search I click on the message and it shows the items in a list instead of just loading up the email. I'm guessing this is part of the same feature, also would like to turn this off too.

2. Search shows a list.png

18 REPLIES 18

SdG
Making moves

Hi,

Try this:

1. In Thunderbird, select the folder with the conversation you want to turn off.

2. Click "View"

3. Select "Sort By"

4. Select "Unthreaded"

That should do the trick!

S.

I have v115.11.0 and those instructions don't work - the only 'view' I can find is in the hamburger and there's no 'sort by'.  Any suggestions for me? Thanks 

Check my post below.

Rubbish! There is no View icon /button to click on. This threading function appeared unexpectedly, and is a real nuisance - incoming emails get lost.

R6D
Making moves

Show me where you see here "Sorty By"

thunderbird view.png

BeginAgain
Making moves

That did it, what a relief, thanks.

But it still doesn't solve problem 2.

cyberstud
Making moves

I finally found it in my version.  The view menu does not have all of the options that others have. Instead they moved it to the side of field bar of emails. There is an odd symbol like a tree root that you can toggle.

 

Robert563542
Making moves

Unfortunately, there is no solution that actually works. Threaded view has to be disabled for each account individually, there's apparently no way to disabled it for all accounts at once. After disabling for one account, I find that it will randomly revert to threaded view after some time (I have no idea what causes it to revert back), and it will also lose other settings (set back to default), such as the column order. 

Etza22
Making moves

This is the reason I will not buy or support Thunderbird, because of the annoying conversation links that CANNOT be turned off.  Emails should be sorted by date automatically.  The creator of this program gets a F+ in passing grades.

 

Annoying as [bleep] is that the From: column is hidden by default, that's one of the more bewildering decisions ever made. As soon as I find a suitable replacement, TB will be crossed off from my PITA bucket list. 

i selected the inbox folder and clicked on "view" and in the "order" section i selected the simple view.

It worked for me.

Your comment makes no sense whatsoever.  There is no "order" section in Thunderbird where you can click on view.  I assume you are not using the proper word as to what section you are referring to.

 

select folder. above the actual message list, you have a header. there's something "quick filter" and to its right, a funny icon. click on it, and you'll see the option.

KenDarwin
Making moves

Yes, it really was a dopey decision. I can't locate emails sent to me for two factor identification to access other websites, banking, utility providers etc. My solution is to dump Tbird after 15 or so years, and switch to another email client which gives me the choice to use conversation/threading or not. Looking a Microsoft mail at present.

ThePillenwerfer
Contributor

I completely agree that there should be a simple On/Off setting for threading that applies globally.  As there isn't here's what you have to do.

Firstly press Alt-v (or click the View menu if it's visible) and click "Sort by" on the drop-down menu that appears. Towards the bottom of that are "Threaded" and "Unthreaded." Click "Unthreaded."

That will sort out the folder you are currently displaying but only that one.

To make it work in every folder right-click somewhere on the line with the column headings and choose "Apply current view to folder and its children" at the bottom, then pick one of your accounts, then the top of the next list that comes up. See picture as hopefully that'll make it clearer.

Screenshot — Threads.png

You have to do it for every account you have.

kandaon
Making moves

the dumb thing is, you have to do the switch for every folder individually. i don't know who remove the account-wide option switch, but they deserve a penalty.

kandaon
Making moves

a faster way: select the folder in the folder list, hold the ALT key and press in sequence : V S H

that's using the shortcut keys to issue those commands ( ALT + V = view ; ALT + S = sort ; ALT + H = non threaded )