Here is my take on the "wonderful world of threads" ...

Someone thought threads were a fantastic idea. And they thought everyone would love it if they "just got used to it." ...

This is, again, a case of hubris and arrogance on the part of the developers. Although it might be a nice feature for some, I can hear the refrain ... "but so many people like it." Sadly, I am not one of them. As stated by others in this thread, that is NOT how I work. This doesn't make me inferior or a Luddite; it makes me different.

I use my emails to remember what was happening on a particular day. Ask me what happened on Jan 13, 2023, and if I can access my emails, I can tell you exactly what I was doing and thinking. If I wanted to find all the related messages to the one I found on that date, I used the search facility. (I also hate the threading inside the search results!!! :-(

So, why can't the Thunderbird world support both ways of using a great tool? After all, it supported me for 20+ years, and everything was fine. When a new feature is added, the people who created the feature feel the need to make it the default (and, in the case of search, the only way to see results.) I guess they want some accolades about how brilliant they are. Yes, you are brilliant. Yes, you have an excellent way to organize your inboxes. No, it is NOT for me. I have my methods and procedures.

Neither is right or wrong. But PLEASE LET ME DO IT MY WAY, YOU DO IT YOUR WAY! Given time, I might find your way better, but somehow, I doubt it. The email client is just a tool to me. Every time these kinds of changes are thrust on me, I have to take time to adjust. This gets in the way of my actual job, which is not to focus on the email client.

Thanks Nick At Night for your clear and impassioned opinion. Reminds me of a fundamental precept of user interface design: "User In Control." While the Mozilla team deserves much credit for their development efforts, it's essential to give users the liberty to decline new features.

Neither is right or wrong. But PLEASE LET ME DO IT MY WAY, YOU DO IT YOUR WAY! Given time, I might find your way better, but somehow, I doubt it. The email client is just a tool to me. Every time these kinds of changes are thrust on me, I have to take time to adjust. This gets in the way of my actual job, which is not to focus on the email client.

You can do it your way. You do have the choice. Thankfully, the developers still made it possible to choose your own options. Just use the information I posted in an earlier comment and all should be as you desire. It's a pain it was set up as threaded by default and I'm not disagreeing with you, but there's little point going on about it because everyone who posted in this question already understands your point of view. Just use the fix I posted and life will get back to normality.

I see people have the same problem I have, but I don't see solutions. Tuesday evening about 6:30 PM est April 2, 2024, all of my sent mail became threaded. Not via the menu. I never touched the menu and threading wasn't there in the menu bar. This threading is on the subjects of the e-mails themselves. If it was something I inadvertently did, how do I undo it? If it is a new default, how do I undo it?

    How can I see every sent mail in the order it was sent, not buried in a thread?  These threads are unidentifiable.  If I do a reply-all on an e-mail in sent mail.  It was never a thread before and I do not want it to be a thread.  E_mails I have done reply-all for months, using each prior e-mail as a template and changing what is relevant, are now buried under threads.  Invisible.  Buried.  Unable to be used again.  Made useless.

Please please please tell me how to get my sent mail back. Please.

Neither is right or wrong. But PLEASE LET ME DO IT MY WAY, YOU DO IT YOUR WAY! Given time, I might find your way better, but somehow, I doubt it. The email client is just a tool to me. Every time these kinds of changes are thrust on me, I have to take time to adjust. This gets in the way of my actual job, which is not to focus on the email client.

You can do it your way. You do have the choice. Thankfully, the developers still made it possible to choose your own options. Just use the information I posted in an earlier comment and all should be as you desire. It's a pain it was set up as threaded by default and I'm not disagreeing with you, but there's little point going on about it because everyone who posted in this question already understands your point of view. Just use the fix I posted and life will get back to normality.

Toad-Hall, I looked through your posts and didn't find the fix you referred to here. Or I saw it and it wasn't as relevant as it seemed in that post to Nick at Night above. So far every fix I've seen on the thunderbird site refers to the menu where I can choose or not choose thread. That's not what I'm going through. Thread is not selected, but my sent e-mails are threaded anyway.

You can turn off the threads temporarily because someone at Thunderbird has decided to keep switching it on, dumb, dumb, dumb. You are Brilliant, NOT!

View -> Sort by -> Unthreaded View -> Threads -> Ignore Threads

It does nothing if you do

Edit -> Find -> Search Messages

Go figure!!

For anyone with an issue with threading please view this comment - link below - and use the instructions before posting.

   [[https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1427119?page=2#answer-1623190|

For anyone with an issue with threading please view this comment - link below - and use the instructions before posting.

  [https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/que.../1427119?page=2#answer-1623190]

The sad thing is Threaded keeps coming back :-(

I just have learned that before I do anything in Thunderbird in the morning I have to turn Threading off again, and again, and again ... Groundhog Day, Thunderbird edition.

View -> Threads -> Ignore Threads View -> Sort By -> Unthreaded

It is now just a morning tradition.