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What determines whether e-mails are threaded?

  • 2 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 21 views
  • Last reply by ramasaig

ramasaig
ramasaig
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I'm familair with threading, I know how to turn it on and off etc. I recently moved a number of e-mails out of my inbox to a folder of their own. Out of some thirty e-mails there are perhaps only six different subject lines, so I thought they'd be easier to view threaded, but I can't get them to group up like threads normally do. I have set the 'View > Sort by' to Date, Descending and Threaded, and 'View > Threads' to 'All'. That is normally sufficient. All that happens when I turn threading on is that the column of messages in the folder moves to the right (and back again if I switch it off).

I'd assumed that threading was always by subject line, but are there other criteria involved? All these messages are from a forum (notifications of a reply), so the 'From' address is the same in every case (a no response address at the forum domain). The 'Reply-to' address is different, as it's effectively a link to the topic in the forum. The 'To' address is always my own. Is there any way I can get these messages to thread?

Tim Dawso

I'm familair with threading, I know how to turn it on and off etc. I recently moved a number of e-mails out of my inbox to a folder of their own. Out of some thirty e-mails there are perhaps only six different subject lines, so I thought they'd be easier to view threaded, but I can't get them to group up like threads normally do. I have set the 'View > Sort by' to Date, Descending and Threaded, and 'View > Threads' to 'All'. That is normally sufficient. All that happens when I turn threading on is that the column of messages in the folder moves to the right (and back again if I switch it off). I'd assumed that threading was always by subject line, but are there other criteria involved? All these messages are from a forum (notifications of a reply), so the 'From' address is the same in every case (a no response address at the forum domain). The 'Reply-to' address is different, as it's effectively a link to the topic in the forum. The 'To' address is always my own. Is there any way I can get these messages to thread? Tim Dawso

All Replies (2)

david
david
  • Top 10 Contributor
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This article may be of use to you. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/message-threading-thunderbird

ramasaig
ramasaig Question owner
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Thank you. That article expanded a bit on what I already knew, but I'm no nearer understanding why threading doesn't appear to work in this instance (nor, of course, what I can do about it, if anything). I feel the 'Conversations' approach linked from the bottom of the article may be overkill for what I want, but I'll take a look.