This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Is there a way of changing the order of email accounts diplayed on the left?

more options

I have a lot of email accounts and before I try and add them all to Thunderbird, I wondered if there is a way of changing the order they are listed on the left-hand side?

I was hoping that under Account settings, you would be able to select one of the accounts and then use a "move up" or "move down" option "Account Actions" at the bottom to change the order, but there is no such option.

I have just added two email accounts at the moment and tried using "Set as Default" under "Account Actions" which does set the selected account to the top (at least in Account Settings immediately, but also in Thunderbird itself after logging out and back in again.

What I am hoping was that someone might know if I added 10 email accounts, then wanted to change the order of their listing, I could use "Set as Default" a number of times to move the selected one to the top until they are listed in the order that I desire?

Of course I could just make sure that I add each account in the reverse order to which want them listed, which is fine until I want to add an additional one and change the order again (I do not want to keep removing them again and re-adding them in a certain order if I need to add a new one).

Of course I could just try trial and error, but it seems to me that surely I am not the only one that wants to use a lot of email accounts and change the order they are listed, later? Perhaps there is a more elegant solution that I am unaware of (even if this requires manually editing a configuration file or something?).

Any help appreciated...

I have a lot of email accounts and before I try and add them all to Thunderbird, I wondered if there is a way of changing the order they are listed on the left-hand side? I was hoping that under Account settings, you would be able to select one of the accounts and then use a "move up" or "move down" option "Account Actions" at the bottom to change the order, but there is no such option. I have just added two email accounts at the moment and tried using "Set as Default" under "Account Actions" which does set the selected account to the top (at least in Account Settings immediately, but also in Thunderbird itself after logging out and back in again. What I am hoping was that someone might know if I added 10 email accounts, then wanted to change the order of their listing, I could use "Set as Default" a number of times to move the selected one to the top until they are listed in the order that I desire? Of course I could just make sure that I add each account in the reverse order to which want them listed, which is fine until I want to add an additional one and change the order again (I do not want to keep removing them again and re-adding them in a certain order if I need to add a new one). Of course I could just try trial and error, but it seems to me that surely I am not the only one that wants to use a lot of email accounts and change the order they are listed, later? Perhaps there is a more elegant solution that I am unaware of (even if this requires manually editing a configuration file or something?). Any help appreciated...

Isisombulu esikhethiweyo

All Replies (2)

more options

Isisombululo esiKhethiweyo

more options

Thank you so much Zenos! I am a happy bunny now.

Just to clarify. I thought I would use trial and error and the "Set Default" setting, adding some other accounts. When I had added 9 accounts, I realized that the last one I had entered, I really wanted listing as the fouth one, not the ninth. I tried "Set Default", which indeed set that account at the top (after a restart of Thunderbird), but when I tried the next one, it put that one at the top, but put the previous one I altered back into ninth place... grrr.

Anyway, the Add-on, Manually sort folders 1.1.1, solved the problem for me. After installing it, I was able to go to the Extension, select Options, select "Sort Accounts" tab (instead of the default "Sort Folders" one), change the order of the accounts to what I wanted (using up and down buttons), do a restart and all is good!

It is perhaps another case of a feature not included in Thunderbird (although it seems an obvious on to provide to me, but no designer seemed to think it worthy). At least the Add-on solves the problem.