As a new user, my suggestion is to spend more time evaluating the options before seeking help, and if you're just trying to find a desirable email client, I suggest it may be wise to evaluate several at the same time. The strength of Thunderbird, of course, is that it is free to use. I do understand your frustration: people coming from Eudora complain that Thunderbird doesn't act like Eudora, people coming from WindowsLIve complain that Thunderbird doesn't act like WindowsLive, and the same from other clients. To share a few comments: conversation view can be turned off with a menu selection, and the order of messages can be easily changed in similar fashion, and Thunderbird also has the ability to show a count of unread messages on the toolbar from the settings menu. On the things you don't like, your suggestions should go to connect dot mozilla dot org to be reviewed, as this forum is only to assist in Thunderbird as it exists today. Thank you for sharing your comments. If you pursue features in depth, and feel comfortable with CSS, Thunderbird has significant customization capabilities.

David: Sorry if my questions were too basic to be worth addressing. I had gone through settings trying to solve these issues, without success. If something "can be turned off with a menu selection" it might be worth telling me how. Also, the count of unread messages is turned on, but nothing is displayed with the icon in the dock. Since I don't know what the available options are, I have no idea whether what I'm asking for is "something I don't like" or something that can be changed within Thunderbird as it is. I have no idea what CSS is. Clearly Thunderbird is not for me. I'll look for a mail client I can operate without having to ask dumb questions.

Ok, I'll try to get you started. Your initial post was implicitly stating 'I don't know Thunderbird and it's flawed.' rather contradictory and I have a tendency to overreact - my apologies. Let me start: - first, click the alt key to cause the menu bar to appear. then, click view>toolbars and tick it to keep it. I have no idea why the default shuts it off and you can later turn it off if that gives you more screen space, as there is a hamburger (three lines) menu icon on upper right - but it provides few features. - okay, if you highlight a folder, you can click view>sort by an click 'unthreaded. - the default message list pane is called 'card view'. If you click the icon to the right of the 'quick search' bar above the message list pane to switch to table view. That view lets you easily toggle the top bar to change sort order. - for lazy or compact viewing, there is view>density and view>font - Thunderbird excels in font management, allowing sender to have preferred font and size, while freeing recipients to their own preferences or to force to use senders, as preferred. - if you browse the forum much, you will frequently see references to the config editor (settings>general) at bottom right of pane. This opens many settings that are officially 'blessed' for user customization. For example, to change the default for NEW folders from threaded to unthreaded, do this: Click settings>general and open config editor and locate the mailnews.default_view_flags line and change value to 0

Okay, that's a start. Let us know as you discover more items. There are other common modifications, such as default font size setup, but I hope this is a start.

Suggestion: Thunderbird is susceptible to having profiles become corrupt if antivirus programs interrupt updates. If you use an antivirus, please do whatever it allows to bypass interfering with email. I also encourage routine backups, always done when Thunderbird is not running.

Thanks, David. I've unthreaded conversations successfully. I therefore no longer need to change the order conversations are shown in. I may have solved the new/unread messages number not showing with the desktop/dock icon by activating notifications in Apple System Preferences. We shall see. Two questions remain: I still can't tell the difference between read and unread messages in the message list. The bold version of the font isn't sufficiently different from the standard version for my eye to catch it. Is there any way to distinguish unread messages more clearly in the message list? And how do I sort the list to get unread messages to come to the top? Do I need to go in through Message list display options>Sort by>read, or is there a quicker way?

Thanks.

If you are viewing message list in table view (one line per message), you might prefer card view (two lines per message) as both lines are bold and may cause unread to be more easily seen. Changing card view to table view and back is that icon to the right of the quick filter button. Another option to explore is to customize the unifed toolbar that sits above everything. Right click and select customize and you can put frequent buttons to be always available. One of the available buttons is VIEW. I suggest dragging that to the bar as in clicking it you and change from viewing all messages to just viewing unread messages, or even a custom view that you specify in a custom filter.

It is possible to change font size of unread, even to change its color, but that is a CSS issue. The CSS statements to do that may be elsewhere here on the forum, but I don't know it since I don't need it.

Thanks again. I'm using card view, so it's as good as it gets. Right clicking on the top toolbar (the one with the Search box it it) does nothing on my system, but I did find the page by going to View>Toolbars>Customize and have moved the View button to the top. I'm not feeling up to dabbling in CSS, however that would be accessed, so I'll see if I can get used to the program. One final question: when I delete a message in the message list, it always moves me down to the older message below it. I like to read and respond to my messages in the order I received them, which means going up towards the more recent messages (since I have mine sorted by descending). Can I set the system to go towards the more recent rather than towards the older message?

There is probably an answer, but I haven't found it yet, either. All the best.  :) If no more immediate questions, please mark this thread resolved. And welcome to Thunderbird.