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How do I configure the Thunderbird inbox view to display the IMAP header "Received:" date?

  • 3 replies
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  • Last reply by Matt

verticalscience
verticalscience
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The inbox view can display the columns "Date" and "Received" . When viewing Yahoo mail (using IMAP) both columns display the date unread mail was delivered to Thunderbird instead of the date the message arrived at the Yahoo server. Example: Message source contains Received: 09 Nov 2008 16:18:40 -0800 but the inbox view in the Date column has the date 7/18/14 1:56pm (this is a reformatted version of the date)

The inbox view can display the columns "Date" and "Received" . When viewing Yahoo mail (using IMAP) both columns display the date unread mail was delivered to Thunderbird instead of the date the message arrived at the Yahoo server. Example: Message source contains Received: 09 Nov 2008 16:18:40 -0800 but the inbox view in the Date column has the date 7/18/14 1:56pm (this is a reformatted version of the date)

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Matt
Matt
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it can not display what has not been downloaded, for them to be the same I assume you have chosen to leave messages on the server.

Date: is set by the sender and has nothing to do with a delivery date in Thunderbird. If Thunderbird is displaying the date the message arrived in Thunderbird, what is in the date: header? Received: is a series of transmission points and following the instructions below will display the latest. 

  *  Select Tools/Options from the main menu.
  • Click Config Editor.
  • If a warning displays, click “I’ll be careful, I promise!”.
  • Locate the mailnews.customDBHeaders preference, e.g. by typing “dbh” in the Filter field. Double click it, or select and press Enter.
  • If the preference was not set previously, type “Received” and click OK. If some extension has already populated the preference, add “ Received” to the end of the list of headers, separating it with space.
  • Close the Config Editor and restart Thunderbird.
verticalscience
verticalscience Question owner
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This is an example message header. On my Mac, the Date and Received columns display 7/8/14 1:56PM. What I'd rather see 3/6/2006, when the message was really sent. Im using IMAP. I did change mailnews.customDBHeaders preference but it did not affect the Date or Received column.

X-Apparently-To: xyz@yahoo.com via 68.142.201.236; Mon, 06 Mar 2006 23:50:31 -0800 X-Originating-IP: [216.21.229.220] Return-Path: <d3af73d10a1e0221018e229031c66d08@bounce.register.com> Authentication-Results: mta140.mail.re4.yahoo.com 

 from=register.com; domainkeys=neutral (no sig)

Received: from 216.21.229.220 (EHLO mail02.nyat.register.com) (216.21.229.220) 

 by mta140.mail.re4.yahoo.com with SMTP; Mon, 06 Mar 2006 23:50:26 -0800

Received: from [216.21.228.13] (helo=sched01.nyat.register.com) by mail02.nyat.register.com with esmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1FGWxc-0003bS-Gn for xyz@yahoo.com; Tue, 07 Mar 2006 02:50:24 -0500 Message-ID: <24957133.1141717824513.JavaMail.no-reply@bounce.register.com> From: invoice@register.com To: xyz@yahoo.com Subject: Thank you for your business with Register.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 11685

Matt
Matt
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Hmm, so there is no date: that is a non RFC complaint mail header.

Right click the folder, slect properties and then the repair button to actually update the index of existing mail. The change only affects new mail otherwise.