While I can not replicate this, Logically the search would start at the start of the file. That would be the oldest message moving forward. SO if the items are added as they are found, I would expect the lodest to appear first. If the update is slow it might be they appear in that order until the search ends and then the defined sort order applies.

I suggest you restart in troubleshooting mode from the help menu and continue in safe mode when prompted and see if that is the same.

Hey Matt,

I may not be understanding completely but this period of inverting the date order was not a transitionary state on load. It was a change in the column order that would persist for all other use of Thunderbird and all other searches until I toggled it again.

However, I have to change the status to resolved because not long after posting this message the behaviour went away on its own and hasn't returned yet. I was experiencing the issue for a couple of days before it went away but it did persist after a restart and reload so I'm not sure what's going on there.

Thanks for the help!

I'm not trying to claim credit for the fix, I'm just trying to change the status of the question...