Move/Copy to > Recent: Target folder list is more difficult to use after Bug #1829748 which changed the list to most recently used topmost, not alphabetical
Categories
(Thunderbird :: Folder and Message Lists, defect, P2)
Tracking
(thunderbird_esr140 unaffected, thunderbird145 unaffected, thunderbird146 wontfix, thunderbird147 wontfix, thunderbird148 wontfix, thunderbird149 affected)
| Tracking | Status | |
|---|---|---|
| thunderbird_esr140 | --- | unaffected |
| thunderbird145 | --- | unaffected |
| thunderbird146 | --- | wontfix |
| thunderbird147 | --- | wontfix |
| thunderbird148 | --- | wontfix |
| thunderbird149 | --- | affected |
People
(Reporter: wsmwk, Assigned: welpy-cw)
References
(Regression)
Details
(Keywords: regression)
Attachments
(3 files, 1 external file, 3 obsolete files)
MRU+alphabetical.png
+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #1829748 Move/Copy to > Recent: Target folder list should be sorted by most recently used topmost, not alphabetical +++
Move/Copy to > Recent: Target folder list is more difficult to use after the above change, from personal experience (I use it a lot every day) and from user reports. If the folder I want to find isn't among the most recent at the top, then scanning a list of folder names is painful (some might say horrible).
Granted, sometimes we must give users time to adjust to "UI changes". However, I don't think this will happen in this case. And so I think the patch should be backed out.
While I applaud the effort and initiative of delivering a user request, perhaps Bug #1829748 illustrates a hole in our process. Not all enhancement bug reports are good ideas, so under what circumstances should a UI review be required?
As for an ultimate solution for Bug #1829748, perhaps a hybrid? Can we have a short MRU list of 3 or 5 at the top, and then the rest, the majority of the list, be alphabetical?
recent #1
recent #2
recent #3
~~ ~~ ~~ ~~
the other 22 folders
...
...
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Assignee | |
Comment 1•1 year ago
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This essentially backs out the fix for bug 1829748, except for the corrected comments.
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Updated•1 year ago
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Assignee | |
Comment 2•1 year ago
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If the decision is made to revert the behavior, bug 1829748 should be either WONTFIXed or REOPENed.
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Comment 3•1 year ago
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Current summary:
Move/Copy to > Recent: Target folder list is more difficult to use after Bug #1829710 which changed the list to most recently used topmost, not alphabetical
(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #0)
+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #1829710 Move/Copy to > Recent: Target folder list should be sorted by most recently used topmost, not alphabetical +++
I think in the title of this bug, and for all of comment 0, you're really talking about bug 1829748 (not bug 1829710, which didn't change anything)...
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Comment 4•1 year ago
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I would call for caution on these changes and involve the front-end and design team to find the proper solution.
We should also analyze what our competitors do and what is the "expected" behaviour from other apps.
This is tricky because I can see how different personal preferences can drive these approaches, but we shouldn't be too quick in declaring one approach better than the other.
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Reporter | |
Comment 5•1 year ago
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(In reply to Thomas D. (:thomas8) from comment #3)
Current summary:
Move/Copy to > Recent: Target folder list is more difficult to use after Bug #1829710 which changed the list to most recently used topmost, not alphabetical
(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #0)
+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #1829710 Move/Copy to > Recent: Target folder list should be sorted by most recently used topmost, not alphabetical +++
I think in the title of this bug, and for all of comment 0, you're really talking about bug 1829748 (not bug 1829710, which didn't change anything)...
Thanks for pointing out my error - I'm still struggling with the changed bugzilla clone to new bug choices. Comment 0 is corrected.
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Comment 6•1 year ago
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(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #0)
+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #1829748 Move/Copy to > Recent: Target folder list should be sorted by most recently used topmost, not alphabetical +++
Move/Copy to > Recent: Target folder list is more difficult to use after the above change, from personal experience (I use it a lot every day) and from user reports. If the folder I want to find isn't among the most recent at the top, then scanning a list of folder names is painful (some might say horrible).
One possible solution would be to add in UI Settings to give users the ability to change back to alphabetical. I would use that option straight away as I'm still having trouble getting used the the new sorting.
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Comment 7•1 year ago
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Another option would be to just add an MRU option along with Recent Destinations and Favorites. Then people could use the one they wish.
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Comment 8•1 year ago
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I think the "move to ... again" item was intended to be the option for when you want to move to the most recent place again. In comparison I think it's less important for the order of the recently used submenu to have a order by recency. While I do personally think a recency order makes more sense, that is, as Alessandro explained, a personal preference. But I do think whatever the most appropriate order is depends on why you'd still need recent items, even though you don't need the most recent one. It is a similar problem as how many recent items there should be.
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Comment 9•11 months ago
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(In reply to Alessandro Castellani [:aleca] from comment #4)
I would call for caution on these changes and involve the front-end and design team to find the proper solution.
We should also analyze what our competitors do and what is the "expected" behaviour from other apps.
This is tricky because I can see how different personal preferences can drive these approaches, but we shouldn't be too quick in declaring one approach better than the other.
Whatever the final solution turns out to be, I'd suggest reverting this change for now, while 146 is still in Beta, to avoid a possible back-and-forth in Release.
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Comment 10•11 months ago
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Thanks for the suggestion, but I've been looking around at other applications that have a "do this action again" kind of options and they all end up listing the most recent action/destination at the top, not alphabetically.
I recommend to let the change ride the train and wait for users to get used to it.
We will probably get some reports because we're breaking muscle memory, but this new behaviour is more consistent with what other apps are doing.
I'd be more inclined to add a preference that allows users to control that order, and keep the new recent order as the default.
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Updated•11 months ago
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Comment 11•11 months ago
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Instead of reverting the change, I would suggest to improve it instead.
As the originator of Bug 1829748 I can tell you that it is the legacy behaviour of TB with Recent folder feature that was cumbersome to use for end-users. It was indeed hard to identify the most recent used folder in a long list of Alphabetic ordered list!
Indeed operating systems (eg Windows) and other apps (eg Libre Office) all do order Recents items by historical order rather than Alphabetic order. I believe Thunderbird was at fault here in implementing the feature by Alphabetic order originally. Or maybe in naming the feature?
That said, instead of forcing end-users to one way or another by default, why not to explore the hybrid approach suggested by Wayne in Comment 0?
I would add some headers to make it more intuitive on the ordering and reason for two lists though... and add more recent folder in the historical list. Also I don't think you need 22 folders in the list ordered by name! Maybe 10 max? Otherwise it defeats the purpose of accessing quickly a recently accessed folder, no?
# By Date
recent #1
recent #2
recent #3
recent #4
recent #5
~~ ~~ ~~ ~~
# By Name
the other 10 folders
...
...
While it would respect the historical order, it would then allow accustom TB users to continue working with the as it did in the past without creating an out-cry while also allowing access by most recent.
Wouldn't that be a better option than adding yet another preference? While your original intention was to reduce number of preferences and avoid them. Alternatively the preference could allow to decide on the hybrid, bydateonly, bynameonly... but overkill perhaps...
The alternative may be to split the menu with an intermediary sub menu:
Recents folders > By Date => List items in historical order
By Name > List items in alphabetic order
Though not my preferred option as it adds clicks... I think the hybrid approach from Wayne may be better... if you still want to accommodate alphabetic order.
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Assignee | |
Comment 12•11 months ago
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The easiest remedy would probably be just setting mail.folder_widget.max_recent to 10 instead of the current default of 25. While his wouldn't change the order of the topmost 10 recent folders, obviously, it could make finding the right folder easier nonetheless.
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Comment 13•11 months ago
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Changing to max 10 sounds good to me. It's not really "recent" if it's the 25th most recently used...
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Comment 14•11 months ago
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(In reply to Magnus Melin [:mkmelin] from comment #13)
Changing to max 10 sounds good to me. It's not really "recent" if it's the 25th most recently used...
No, this really isn't necessarily true. For example if one has many folders and many potential target folders - think users who have many email accounts and/or accounts for disparate purposes as in a mix of business and personal, or multiple businesses - it's very easy to exceed a core set 10 frequently used folders. (This wouldn't be as much an issue if we had fast folder finding/selection tools built in, but we don't.)
Also, it was changed in Bug 949135 - longer, more intelligent, time sensitive folder list for move to/copy to "recent" folder - from 15 to 25, so the original baseline was 15 folders, not 10.
Using "favorites" folders as an alternative for less frequently used folders occurred to me. But it's not a viable alternative because use of "favorites" is conflated in the folder pane as a proxy for "pinned folders" which I use frequently for quick folder switching, and I'd think many people use.
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Comment 15•11 months ago
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My 5 cents: Short MRU above, alphabetically below, as per comment 11. Or a pref, but there are too many already. Filter creation would also profit from having a MRU section to pick a filter target folder.
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Updated•11 months ago
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Comment 18•11 months ago
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I'm also finding this change very frustrating. Do any of the other systems that sort their recently-used list by date-last-used have 25, or even 15, entries? Sorting by MRU seems appropriate only for small lists; beyond a few items it's asking people to remember how long ago they used a folder in order to know how far down to scroll (visually) to find a folder.
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Assignee | |
Comment 19•10 months ago
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Depending on the total number of destinations, display the two to five most
recently used folders in order of their last use. The other folders are
displayed in a separate, alphabetically sorted list.
Even if a user defines a greater number of folders to display, the dynamic
ratio is capped at five items to stay within the human subitizing limit for
instant recognition.
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Assignee | |
Comment 20•10 months ago
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If anyone wants to try this, you can find the latest Daily built with this change here. (Click on a suitable 'Ba', then on 'Artifacts and Debugging Tools'.)
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Comment 21•10 months ago
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I just posted this note to Bug 1829748 (which is now closed) before I saw THIS bug...
I just upgraded from TB v146.0 to v146.0.1 and shortly after I encountered this new sort order for RECENT items. IT's HORRIBLE and practically useless !! If I want most-recent (because I'm moving several things there), I can still find it -- easily -- in an alphabetical sort. But if I'm looking for something recent, it's extremely difficult to find it quickly in a most-recent (for all intents, "random") sorted listing.
I likely will never use RECENT again until this is fixed. Please! Go back to the way it was!
If you want to flag THE most recent entry somehow (for those doing multiple COPIES/MOVES to a particular folder in a short time), that would make it easy to find. But to make the whole list alphabetical instead of MRU is painful for the huge majority that rely on it. If you MUST have it alpha, make doing so yet another option for users to select (and programmers to watch out for).
As for size of the list, the 25 we have now is comfortable. Too long goes way off screen, and too short is exactly that. The current length captures a week's worth for me.
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Comment 22•10 months ago
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Whether chronological oder alphabethical is useful, is a quesion of length. Short list -> find folders easily, even if they change positions several times a day. Long list: searching folders is painful, if they change positions contoinuously.
I vote for:
a) an option to customise the length of the list, I'd prefer more than 25 entries
b) an option to sort the list either chronologically od alphabethically (I defintitely perfer alhabethically)
I consider it rather useless having a double-list, that also doubles the time to search for a folder
If I may make a wish, I would like to have a **list of favourites **instead (that is, what most other software offers), where folders used just once do not enter.
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Comment 23•10 months ago
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(In reply to Francesco from comment #15)
My 5 cents: Short MRU above, alphabetically below, as per comment 11. Or a pref, but there are too many already. Filter creation would also profit from having a MRU section to pick a filter target folder.
The screenshot was taken with the provided binary from comment 20. IMHO, the best of both worlds, without introducing yet another preference. Also very useful in filter creation where a recently created folder can be added to a filter without having to navigate to it. Of course with real data, both lists will be longer.
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Comment 24•10 months ago
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I am definitely in the camp of hating the MRU sorting for the most Recent list. Scanning so many filenames each time I want to move an email to a folder is cumbersome, and really doesn't work. I end up scanning several times and still can't find the folder I know I moved stuff to yesterday or even earlier today. Knowing where it is instinctively by it's position in the alphabet is MUCH easier and quicker. (Honestly, the 3 folders I really want to be on top of the Most Recent list I just start with a # sign. They're automatically on top that way.) I just stopped using the Move to option "until you fix it". It's no better than having to drag & drop it to the folder. I have a ton of folders to make it easier for me to find old emails. Otherwise, they just all end up staying in the Inbox, which is crazy-making. I'm OK with the hybrid with a couple of MRU entries followed by the alpha list. But don't make the MRU list too long, either. There's really only a couple of folders that are really "most used" for me.
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Comment 25•10 months ago
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The reason "that's what others do" is the worst reason to change something that was working just fine. What is the most efficient/user friendly is what the goal should be. I suspect that those that want MRU use only a couple of folders a lot, where as those that prefer alphabetical use Recent for many frequently used folders. It's much easier/faster to scan folders alphabetically than to hunt and peck. Please change it back.
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Comment 26•10 months ago
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(In reply to Paul from comment #25)
The reason **"that's what others do" **is the worst reason to change something that was working just fine. ....
The worst reson definitels to my opinion is ... "because we always have done it that way".
However, I consider "what other do" not quite irrelevant, since this is what people are used to do. In the company, I have to use Outlook. Outlook offers anopportunity to set favourites, the offer to customize their sequence, but unforutnately the favourites list competes with the regulat list in terms of space. The jum list in the task bar of Windows can be combined, on to, the favourites and below the most recent files. The sequence cannot be changed, but the length of the list, if you dig into the registry key "JumpListItems". Big screens are an advantage, the 24'' offers space for 25 items, the 27'' more than 30, and ... you can scroll hem up and down. Outlook has a quite similar "move-to-folder" function, but only 10 items in historical order, don't like it either.
Concluding: I'd prefer a move-to-button with a favourite folder list I can select myself.
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Reporter | |
Comment 27•10 months ago
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Thanks Hartmut for that hybrid build and I hope others test it and post their results. I look forward to testing it.
customise the length of the list, I'd prefer more than 25 entries
mail.folder_widget.max_recent already exists for users to set their own value
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Comment 28•10 months ago
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(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #0)
+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #1829748 Move/Copy to > Recent: Target folder list should be sorted by most recently used topmost, not alphabetical +++
Move/Copy to > Recent: Target folder list is more difficult to use after the above change, from personal experience (I use it a lot every day) and from user reports. If the folder I want to find isn't among the most recent at the top, then scanning a list of folder names is painful (some might say horrible).
Granted, sometimes we must give users time to adjust to "UI changes". However, I don't think this will happen in this case. And so I think the patch should be backed out.
While I applaud the effort and initiative of delivering a user request, perhaps Bug #1829748 illustrates a hole in our process. Not all enhancement bug reports are good ideas, so under what circumstances should a UI review be required?
As for an ultimate solution for Bug #1829748, perhaps a hybrid? Can we have a short MRU list of 3 or 5 at the top, and then the rest, the majority of the list, be alphabetical?
recent #1
recent #2
recent #3
~~ ~~ ~~ ~~
the other 22 folders
...
...
This is not an ADJUSTMENT to changes to the UI that users must make. By definition, this is a list of most recently used folders.
Further putting them in order of most recent makes it far more time consuming to find what you are looking for. Put it back to alphabetical. I truly hope Mozilla is not going to continue to bork TB like they have Firefox. I'm in process of moving to Brave. Please don't make me move on from TB as well.
Put it back to alphabetical.
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Updated•10 months ago
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Reporter | |
Updated•10 months ago
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Assignee | |
Comment 29•10 months ago
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These buttons should perform the same actions as the 'Move To' menu items in
the folder and thread pane context menus, as well as in the main menu under
'Message.' Additionally, replace all remaining instances of 'Recent' with
'Recent Destinations,' as started in Bug 1930707.
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Comment 30•10 months ago
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This would be a reasonable solution for everyone... those who want alphabetical and those who want MRU. I would prefer to change it back to the way it has always been or add an option to sort by alphabetical. Many of us have work flows that really don't work with the MRU approach that you have implemented.
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Comment 31•10 months ago
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I'm the type of user Wayne describes in comment 14. I have a bunch of email accounts (checking, it looks like 9), and lots of folders and subfolders (and the occasional subsub and subsubsub folder). So the Recent Destinations is a way for me to flatten that folder hierarchy for moving (almost always) or copying (very rarely, in fact maybe never), and to limit it to those folders I move messages to the most. Having any MRU component in the menu would just be a waste for me, I have no interest in doing a linear search, and if was limited to a small number of folders, in my usage it would be constantly changing as when I move a message, it's either to the last folder I moved something to (which Move to "<folder>" Again solves nicely) or some folder unrelated to the few I've used lately.
I also would be opposed to shrinking the size of the Recent Destinations menu, it's already maybe 5-10 too small for me, if it was shrunk to 10 it would also be constantly changing and fairly useless to me.
So my vote (not that I really get one, but here we go) would be for now to just revert to alphabetical with the number of entries it has now, and then if people desire, explore an optional different menu arrangement (although frankly I think if you ask 10 people how they would arrange it you'll get 15 different answers :-) ).
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Comment 33•10 months ago
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(In reply to Customimaster from comment #32)
Why not add the "Favourites" button which is there in the context menu to the main toolbar?
Thanks for the suggestion. The pre-Bug 1829748 alphabetical sort was useful because it provided very easy access to the working subset of folders in recent use. "Favourites" is static rather than dynamic and so would require periodic manual interventions to keep the list relevant.
Resolving this should be an opportunity to make the modest enhancement to the "Move to" list that the originator of Bug 1829748 suggests above - and perhaps a little more. I would extend his concept to allow:
- A choice of either alphabetical sorts or MRU sorts or (as he suggests) both
- Users to be able to set the number of folders in the list
In any case I am another Thunderbird user who is finding that this apparently small change is having a distracting impact on my productivity.
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Comment 34•10 months ago
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(In reply to Alessandro Castellani [:aleca] from comment #4)
I would call for caution on these changes and involve the front-end and design team to find the proper solution.
We should also analyze what our competitors do and what is the "expected" behaviour from other apps.
This is tricky because I can see how different personal preferences can drive these approaches, but we shouldn't be too quick in declaring one approach better than the other.
I would say the "expected" behavior is the behavior it has had for the past 15 years. Many of us have become dependent on the "recents" list being sorted alphabetically, and MRU is essentially random. I have 30+ folders that I file to and now the list is scrambled and useless.
MS Outlook sorts by MRU and its terrible. One of the many reasons I wont use it.
Note that bug 534523 (16 years ago) fixed this behavior so that the list is sorted alphabetically. The recent "fix" 1829748 broke it.
Please... at least make it a configuration option.
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Comment 35•10 months ago
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(In reply to Hartmut Welpmann [:welpy-cw] from comment #12)
The easiest remedy would probably be just setting
mail.folder_widget.max_recentto10instead of the current default of25. While his wouldn't change the order of the topmost 10 recent folders, obviously, it could make finding the right folder easier nonetheless.
This is not a solution to the problem people are complaining about. I have mail.folder_widget.max_recent set to 40. I have many projects across many organizations and depend on that list being alphabetical so I can file things quickly.
Simply reducing the number of items in the list does not solve this problem.
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Comment 37•10 months ago
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Thank you all for your comments.
We're evaluating the addition of a preference to choose between MRU and Alphabetical, please hold on.
We appreciate your feedback but let's try to limit the usage of bugzilla to bug reports and not turn it into a discussion forum.
Thank you
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Comment 38•10 months ago
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Comment on attachment 9535007 [details]
Bug 2000453 - Add 'Favorites' as destination for 'Move To' and 'File' buttons. r=#thunderbird-front-end-reviewers
Revision D277573 was moved to bug 2009042. Setting attachment 9535007 [details] to obsolete.
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Updated•10 months ago
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Assignee | |
Comment 39•10 months ago
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As for the proposed improvement, see this comment.
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Comment 40•10 months ago
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I can't comment there, but it seems to me the default should be true. That's how it's effectively been for something like 15 years. If the default is false, it will still be an inexplicable unexpected change.
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Comment 41•10 months ago
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Also, how will people even know that this new boolean pref exists and know how to use it. My guess is very few. Shouldn't the option be in the TB settings and not in config editor?
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Comment 42•10 months ago
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Want to add my voice to the requests to go back to alphabetical ordering. MRU ordering is very clumsy if you have to scan through dozens of folders to find the one that you want, while alphabetical ordering allows one to find it immediately.
Minimally, there should be a user preference fort the preferred behavior.
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Comment 43•10 months ago
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I have never previously filed a Thunderbird complaint or feature request, but I would like to add my perspective on this change.
I move a large volume of messages to Local Folders every day, and for my workflow, having destination folders listed in alphabetical order is by far the most efficient option. While I do appreciate the convenience of seeing recently used folders, scanning a list ordered solely by “Most Recently Used” dozens of times per day significantly slows my work.
I understand that many users prefer MRU ordering, and that preference is entirely valid. However, could Thunderbird support both workflows by providing a user-selectable option?
Possible approaches might include:
A preference to choose Alphabetical or Most Recently Used ordering, or
A hybrid display (for example, the first 5 folders shown in MRU order, followed by a separator and the remaining folders in alphabetical order).
Historically, this list was displayed alphabetically, and while I understand it was changed in response to user requests, the complete reversal is quite disruptive for long-time users who have relied on the previous behavior for years.
I fully recognize that bug fixes take priority, but I would greatly appreciate at least an option to restore alphabetical ordering for those of us whose workflows depend on it. Thank you for your time and consideration.
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Updated•9 months ago
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Comment 45•9 months ago
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As a decades-long user of Thunderbird, I was perfectly happy with presenting the folders in alphabetic order. I could learn to live with a most-recently-used order, except that it isn't the most recently used order. I tested just now on 147.0 and the order is a sort-of-but-not-quite recently used order that I can't fathom and appears semi-random to me, although I am sure it is not semi-random.
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Comment 46•9 months ago
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(In reply to K.S. Bhaskar from comment #45)
As a decades-long user of Thunderbird, I was perfectly happy with presenting the folders in alphabetic order. I could learn to live with a most-recently-used order, except that it isn't the most recently used order. I tested just now on 147.0 and the order is a sort-of-but-not-quite recently used order that I can't fathom and appears semi-random to me, although I am sure it is not semi-random.
Someone at Mozilla thought that sorting the convenient short list of most recent folders into a most recent of your most recents made sense somehow. To nobody else. I don't even use most recents anymore because it's now trash. Waiting for this "feature" to either revert, or to offer the option of both the prior alphabetical listing as well as the most recent of most recents for the one dev who thought this was a good idea.
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Comment 47•9 months ago
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(In reply to K.S. Bhaskar from comment #45)
As a decades-long user of Thunderbird, I was perfectly happy with presenting the folders in alphabetic order. I could learn to live with a most-recently-used order, except that it isn't the most recently used order. I tested just now on 147.0 and the order is a sort-of-but-not-quite recently used order that I can't fathom and appears semi-random to me, although I am sure it is not semi-random.
My observation has been that the "Most Recent" list does not appear to update right away. If I'm going through some emails, move one to a particular folder, and then go to move another email, the last folder I moved to is not necessarily at the top of the list. I don't know if it's a periodic update or if there's a bug in the logic, but I've noticed this pretty consistently.
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Comment 48•9 months ago
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My observation has been that the "Most Recent" list does not appear to update right away.
I believe this is bug 2008285 which shows as being fixed in 148 (I think, that’s the target and it’s marked as fixed so I assume it’s fixed in 148).
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Comment 49•9 months ago
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(In reply to Brian L. Matthews from comment #48)
My observation has been that the "Most Recent" list does not appear to update right away.
I believe this is bug 2008285 which shows as being fixed in 148 (I think, that’s the target and it’s marked as fixed so I assume it’s fixed in 148).
My new observation (ie, I just tested it) is that if the folder is already in the Most Recent list, it does not immediately move to the top of the list after being moved to. This only happens if the folder is not currently in the Most Recent list.
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Comment 50•9 months ago
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(In reply to Tobi from comment #49)
(In reply to Brian L. Matthews from comment #48)
My observation has been that the "Most Recent" list does not appear to update right away.
I believe this is bug 2008285 which shows as being fixed in 148 (I think, that’s the target and it’s marked as fixed so I assume it’s fixed in 148).
My new observation (ie, I just tested it) is that if the folder is already in the Most Recent list, it does not immediately move to the top of the list after being moved to. This only happens if the folder is not currently in the Most Recent list.
I will further qualify this by saying that once you move an email to a folder not currently in the Most Recent List, it moves all the Recent folders up to the top (including the "existing" folders that previously did not move). So it seems the re-ordering of the list is triggered by moving an email to a folder that's not on the Most Recent List, but not by moving an email to a folder that is already currently on the Most Recent List.
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Comment 51•9 months ago
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Did you try on version 148 (148 isn’t the public release yet, so you’d have to download it specially from here and by choosing the daily (or maybe beta) release channel)? Because what you describe is exactly how 147 works (just tried it). If you did try 148, then I don’t know what bug 2008285 fixed, but it doesn’t seem to be what it says it fixed (or I misunderstand what it says it fixed).
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Comment 52•9 months ago
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(In reply to Brian L. Matthews from comment #51)
Did you try on version 148 (148 isn’t the public release yet, so you’d have to download it specially from here and by choosing the daily (or maybe beta) release channel)? Because what you describe is exactly how 147 works (just tried it). If you did try 148, then I don’t know what bug 2008285 fixed, but it doesn’t seem to be what it says it fixed (or I misunderstand what it says it fixed).
I'm sorry, I misunderstood that it had already been fixed in the current public release version. I am on 147. Sorry about that.
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Comment 53•9 months ago
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Speaking for myself, if all https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2008285 fixes is to make the order a less random, but still sort-of most-recently-used, it's not worth the effort of installing the new version with potentially different regressions and then reverting to 147.0, which is what my package manager installs. Now, if 148 produced the folders in alphabetic order, I'd jump at the chance.
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Updated•9 months ago
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Assignee | |
Comment 55•9 months ago
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This patch introduces user-facing controls for "Recent" folder behavior in the
Appearance preference pane and implements the logic to sort these folders
alphabetically.
Added a new "Recent Destinations" section to the 'Appearance' settings panel
with a checkbox to toggle alphabetical sorting
(mail.folder_widget.recent_alphabetic) and a numeric input to set the maximum
number of recent folders displayed (mail.folder_widget.max_recent).
Updated the folder popup logic to respect the new sorting preference, allowing
the 'Recent Destinations" submenu to be ordered alphabetically.
Integrated a preference observer in the folder widget backend to ensure that
any cached menus are rebuild.
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Updated•9 months ago
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Comment 57•9 months ago
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That gets the job done but doesn't make it clear that unchecking the box changes the sort order to MRU. It might be better to have a toggle control like the one used for "Default Sort Order" above and make people explicitly choose between MRU and alphabetical.
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Updated•9 months ago
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Updated•9 months ago
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Assignee | |
Comment 58•9 months ago
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(In reply to LB from comment #57)
That gets the job done but doesn't make it clear that unchecking the box changes the sort order to MRU. It might be better to have a toggle control like the one used for "Default Sort Order" above and make people explicitly choose between MRU and alphabetical.
Thanks for the good suggestion. I changed this to have a new integer preference mail.folder_widget.recent_sort_order, which leaves room for additional sorting behaviors to be implemented later (such as the hybrid one suggested by Wayne in comment 0, though this seems to be not really the preference of choice, see the statement linked in comment 39).
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Comment 59•9 months ago
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Thank you, this makes Thunderbird so much more usable.
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Comment 60•9 months ago
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Would you please make "Alphabetically" the default? And perhaps the first choice in the list? Thanks!
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Comment 61•9 months ago
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(In reply to LB from comment #60)
Would you please make "Alphabetically" the default? And perhaps the first choice in the list? Thanks!
I heartily support this request!! Alphabetical seems to be BY FAR the preferred sorting order (and never should have been changed), so let's now make this the default in the revised version and make it as easy as possible for the majority of end-users.
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Comment 62•9 months ago
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(In reply to LB from comment #60)
Would you please make "Alphabetically" the default? And perhaps the first choice in the list? Thanks!
Wouldn't it make sense to implement the MRU+alphabetical option as well, see comment #0 and comment #23, and make it the default?
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Comment 63•9 months ago
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(In reply to Francesco from comment #62)
(In reply to LB from comment #60)
Would you please make "Alphabetically" the default? And perhaps the first choice in the list? Thanks!
Wouldn't it make sense to implement the MRU+alphabetical option as well, see comment #0 and comment #23, and make it the default?
Please no. Make the default alphabetical, so the default is the way it's worked for years.
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Reporter | |
Comment 64•9 months ago
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(In reply to Hartmut Welpmann [:welpy-cw] from comment #58)
Created attachment 9544526 [details]
Screenshot_2026-02-12_11-19-45.png(In reply to LB from comment #57)
That gets the job done but doesn't make it clear that unchecking the box changes the sort order to MRU. It might be better to have a toggle control like the one used for "Default Sort Order" above and make people explicitly choose between MRU and alphabetical.
Thanks for the good suggestion. I changed this to have a new integer preference
mail.folder_widget.recent_sort_order, which leaves room for additional sorting behaviors to be implemented later
Thanks for the draft patch.
Further comments here in the bug should be about refining the patch.
(such as the hybrid one suggested by Wayne in comment 0, though this seems to be not really the preference of choice, see the statement linked in comment 39).
It was pie in the sky :)
I have consolidated the two Connect ideas into The place to vote for this is https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/thunderbird-recent-destinations-list-should-be-alphabetical/idi-p/114925 so that we have one vote count. Those who want to express their opinion about order should vote at Connect. It does have a significant number of votes considering its short 45 day lifetime.
Unfortunately it is impossible to gauge the converse, i.e. any significant interest in the new MRU order. I have found no request for this at Connect. And prior bug report requests have effectively zero votes advocating change, and no comments except those of the reporter
- Bug 242562 (21 years old) - MRU folders, add most recently used folders to folder pane (and move / copy menus?)
- Bug 1731539 (4 years old) - Minor UX improvement: sort recent items by recent-ness, not alphabetically
- Bug 1829748 (the two year old bug implementing this change) - Move/Copy to > Recent: Target folder list should be sorted by most recently used topmost, not alphabetical
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Reporter | |
Updated•9 months ago
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Comment 65•9 months ago
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Downloaded a new TBird today (2/16/26). Fix for this MRU issue doesn't seem to be present.
Am I missing something, or is it scheduled for a future release?
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Comment 66•9 months ago
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(In reply to howard from comment #65)
Downloaded a new TBird today (2/16/26). Fix for this MRU issue doesn't seem to be present.
Am I missing something, or is it scheduled for a future release?
The bug is still open pending a decision on which choice to use for the default - Last used or Alphabetical. You can voice your opinion on that at https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/thunderbird-recent-destinations-list-should-be-alphabetical/idi-p/114925.
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Comment 67•9 months ago
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(In reply to Ed from comment #66)
The bug is still open pending a decision on which choice to use for the default - Last used or Alphabetical. You can voice your opinion on that at https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/thunderbird-recent-destinations-list-should-be-alphabetical/idi-p/114925.
Thanks, already voted. Hope this gets addressed soon, because it's a real pain the way it is now.
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Comment 68•8 months ago
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(In reply to Ed from comment #66)
The bug is still open pending a decision on which choice to use for the default - Last used or Alphabetical. You can voice your opinion on that at https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/thunderbird-recent-destinations-list-should-be-alphabetical/idi-p/114925.
I wasn't able to submit a comment on that discussion so voting here: The default should be as it has been for many years: Alphabetical.
Many people out there don't realize it was changed intentionally to MRU. They assume it was a recently introduced bug and are patiently waiting for it to be fixed!
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Updated•8 months ago
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Reporter | |
Comment 69•8 months ago
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For some reason my comment in phab [1] didn't submit. Inline in context:
Welp: Should we lower the default value since the sort by recency apparently doesn't work well for longer lists? Maybe to 10 or 15?
[1] Wayne: Will we have telemetry on this value and the choices users make for alpha vs mru? If we will, maybe keep the current number and see where people who change it land. FWIW, value was 15 for ten years, prior to setting at 25 in 2019. I'd advocate for at least not going below 15.
aleca: Yeah, good call, let's do 10. Do we already have a bug for this kind of performance issue? Maybe we can investigate this later and try to solve it.
There isn't a performance issue afaict. I think what Welp is referring to is what people have said about users having trouble scanning a longish MRU list to find a folder name.
But IMO that that's simply conflating the two different choices (I'm not saying that artfully but I don't have something better) - meaning, if the folder name they are seeking isn't near the top in an MRU list then maybe the user should be using alpha order and not MRU. In other words, does making the list shorter really help the user who chose a preferred use case of MRU situation - does it really help the user workflow?
I don't think it substantially does. At worst they stop scanning after some number and revert to the folder tree. But making the list shorter for alpha users is a step backwards.
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Assignee | |
Comment 70•8 months ago
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(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #69)
For some reason my comment in phab [1] didn't submit. Inline in context:
Maybe you did not explicitly submit the draft comments (bottom of the page), maybe Phab just not behaving as it should…
Welp: Should we lower the default value since the sort by recency apparently doesn't work well for longer lists? Maybe to 10 or 15?
[1] Wayne: Will we have telemetry on this value and the choices users make for alpha vs mru? If we will, maybe keep the current number and see where people who change it land. FWIW, value was 15 for ten years, prior to setting at 25 in 2019. I'd advocate for at least not going below 15.
aleca: Yeah, good call, let's do 10. Do we already have a bug for this kind of performance issue? Maybe we can investigate this later and try to solve it.There isn't a performance issue afaict. I think what Welp is referring to is what people have said about users having trouble scanning a longish MRU list to find a folder name.
But IMO that that's simply conflating the two different choices (I'm not saying that artfully but I don't have something better) - meaning, if the folder name they are seeking isn't near the top in an MRU list then maybe the user should be using alpha order and not MRU. In other words, does making the list shorter really help the user who chose a preferred use case of MRU situation - does it really help the user workflow?
I don't think it substantially does. At worst they stop scanning after some number and revert to the folder tree. But making the list shorter for alpha users is a step backwards.
My rationale was like this: If the default sort order is kept as by last used, the default maximum number of entries should be lower than 25. Every user who prefers alphabetical sort has to change this in preferences anyway and can adjust the max number to his liking at the same time.
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Comment 71•8 months ago
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But if we're going offer the ALPHA sort -- which I sense the vast majority want -- then we should go back to ALPHA as the default and with a list of 25 items (which is a reasonable size) -- exactly as it was! Let those who actually want MRU actively choose it and size their table accordingly.
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Assignee | |
Updated•8 months ago
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Comment 72•8 months ago
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Pushed by jtracey@thunderbird.net:
https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/rev/a61047469d40
Add 'Recent Destinations' settings to General panel and support alphabetical sorting. r=aleca
Description
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