474118 - Allow sorting messages/mail by sender domain and ignore display name

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Thunderbird :: Folder and Message Lists, enhancement)

Description

[tubesing]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.17) Gecko/20080829 Firefox/2.0.0.17
Build Identifier: 

I often need to sort messages by what domain they come from.  For example, when I place an online order at vendor.com it may generate several emails from different addresses at vendor.com such as [e-mail] and [e-mail], etc.  I would like the option to sort the messages by whatever comes after the @ symbol so they all show up in the list together.

Also, I would like to ignore the nickname and sort messages by sender's actual email address.  Many people send me mail that sometimes shows their nickname in the sender field and sometimes just the email address, or they have slightly different nicknames.  So even though they are sent from the same email address they show up in different places when sorted.  I would love for the sorter to pluck out just the actual email address and sort by that, regardless of what the nickname is.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
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Comment 1

[Matt Dudziak]

Seems like some good ideas to me.

Comment 2

[tubesing]

While we're on the sorting topic, there's one other thing I forgot to suggest.  In the regular eudora I sort email by date descending.  It would be nice if clicking on the "date" header in the toolbar above the message list would cycle through the date sorting options so I could select that quickly.  Instead I have to right click on the header and select "sort by date descending" from a pop-up menu.  Most other programs allow you to cycle through the options with multiple left clicks.  Thanks again for listening.  I love eudora and hope it continues to be a powerful tool.

Comment 3

[Matt Dudziak]

(In reply to comment #2)
> While we're on the sorting topic, there's one other thing I forgot to suggest. 
> In the regular eudora I sort email by date descending.  It would be nice if
> clicking on the "date" header in the toolbar above the message list would cycle
> through the date sorting options so I could select that quickly.  Instead I
> have to right click on the header and select "sort by date descending" from a
> pop-up menu.  Most other programs allow you to cycle through the options with
> multiple left clicks.  Thanks again for listening.  I love eudora and hope it
> continues to be a powerful tool.


Multiple left clicks on the date column header cycles though the various sorts for me. Are you saying that it doesn't for you?

Comment 4

[Matt Dudziak]

Assigning to Thunderbird as this is not really Penelope-specific.

Comment 5

[tubesing]

Well, it is eudora specific.  I am not using thunderbird.

Comment 7

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Not sure what the use case for needing them sorted by domain is. I can certainly understand wanting to see just mails from a certain domain though - that's easily possible by using the quick filter bar.

Comment 8

[tubesing]

The reason for sorting by domain is quite simple... when you know you got an email from company x but you don't know what the username was (or if there were multiple user names) you can sort by domain name and see any emails that came from it. For example, I may want to look up order history for a vendor and some emails come from an address like sales@companyx or customerservice@companyx or from a particular sales rep or whatever, if you can sort by domain you can see all of them together.

Comment 9

[tubesing]

The searching and filtering tools in TB are so hard to use it's not a good tool for me. I still can't figure out how to just search a single mailbox, the crazy interface is incomprehensible, etc. Plus some kinds of activities are just not conducive to a search and sorting a list works better. I find that sorting the contents particular folders in various ways to be much more effective, plus I don't have to worry about whether my search effort found everything or not.

Sorting by domain seems like it should be fairly straightforward, by ignoring anything that comes before the @ symbol in the sender or reply-to field.

Comment 10

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Sounds like what i meant. You really just want easy finding, not sorting.

Have you tried the quick filter bar? Just make it show by clicking the button and then you enter e.g. @example.org to find show only mails involving @example.org - https://support.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/kb/quick-filter-toolbar

Comment 11

[tubesing]

No, I am not merely looking for suggestions on "easy finding."   I meant to ask for exactly what I said, SORTING the folder list by domain.  Thanks. 

FTR, Certainly searching and filtering are ways to find things, but that's not what I want. Like I said, I find that filter bar utterly incomprehensible. It's a clumsy non-intuitive tool from my perspective. Sure some people like it but it's not helpful to me. There are downsides to searching, which I do not mean to debate, I just mention it to assure you that I have a real reason to seek specifically what I originally requested.

Comment 12

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

Can you give a use case for it then? Comment 8 certainly is about finding.

Comment 13

[tubesing]

I've already done that at least twice. You may interpret it as finding, since that is one possible use of what I request. I call it sorting because that's actually what I want.  I look for emails based on where they are put. That's how I organize things. Searching opens up too many other variables and uncertainties. Yes it might be able to get the job done, but it's not the method I find most useful given the way I think about things and organize my emails.

Comment 14

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

(In reply to Magnus Melin [:mkmelin] from comment #12)

Can you give a use case for it then? Comment 8 certainly is about finding.

Magnus is 100% right here. Recipient-only search with quick filter bar covers the scenario of comment 8 quite perfectly, and much more useful. I am failing to understand reporter's problem with quick filter bar - enter search word @domain.tld, remove subject and recipient facets, remain with recipient-only search within the folder. Dead-simple, fast and highly efficient.

It's unfortunate that reporter hasn't succeded to explain WHY filtering won't work for his scenario but sorting would.

There's a couple of dupes, but I guess we've got more important fish to fry, like bug 460737.
Maybe wontfix.

Comment 15

[Magnus Melin [:mkmelin]]

-> WONTFIX

Comment 16

[tubesing]

Thank you for considering this again. I do think I made a case for why it is needed, but I am happy to try again...

I don't want to have to go to the search tool to search by sender's address/domain for the same reason I don't want to have to *search by date to see emails *arranged by date. By the logic suggested in the wontfix above, since the search function will help you find emails by date then there'd be no reason to have a sort-by-date option in the folder, right? In fact, by that same logic there's really no justification for folders at all since searching should help you find anything. However, as evidenced by their existence, clearly you understand the need to have folders and the ability to sort them by various parameters... and for all the reasons that tool is useful to find and organize messages there instead of in the search tool, I am asking for the sort-by-sender address/domain to be included as one of the sort parameters, for the same reasons those other sorting parameters exist - because sometimes its the better way to find things (in my case almost always).

I use folders to arrange emails by topic. I would simply like to arrange topic-filtered emails by a parameter that is not yet offered. I'm just asking for that capacity because I do need it. Yes it's a subtle tool that may not seem that critical to you, and might not be important to a lot of users, but it's important to me, and probably a non-trivial number of other users. As my most important communications tool, Tbird is a vast mission-critical database for me. I now have 17 years of emails in Tbird including the communications history of several business ventures, two non-profits, two dozen web sites, and my entire personal life. It's a pretty specific thing I'm asking for, and its importance may seem small to you, but when you get to the scale I'm dealing with, sometimes small things make a huge difference.

As for searching, yes searching is another way to find messages, but I'm not trying to search I'm trying to sort. They are two very different operations with different applications, and different pros and cons for each. Aside from that basic distinction, the search tool simply doesn't work very well for what I'm trying to accomplish. Plus I find it a frustrating tool to use... It's clumsy, it can't directly search by mailbox, that's a separate filtering step that doesn't show them all, it forces messages into single threads (then opens them all as individual messages when clicked), and most importantly, in order to search for something you have to know exactly what it is you're searching for, whereas sorting a folder gives you another way to browse for something if you're unsure about the exact details. Searching is also a MANY step process, whereas filtering by sender's address would be an easy one or two click operation to rearrange the folder contents, just like you can now opt to sort by date, recipient, subject, etc. I could spend a long time suggesting improvements to the search tool, but that's not the topic on hand here so I'm trying to keep it on point so the simple answer is search is not the right tool for the job i'm trying to do.

Said another way... Yes you can cut things with with a knife, but a knife is not the right tool for every cutting job... just because knives exist doesn't mean saws are unnecessary. Someone who rarely cuts boards may not personally see the need for anything but a knife, but that doesn't mean others would never need a saw. I do understand that I may be asking for a very specific kind of saw here, perhaps one that is not commonly used or that you get few requests for, but there are certain cuts that you simply must have the right tool for or you just can't get the results you need.

I don't mean to seem snarky here at all, so i hope it didn't come off that way. I'm just trying to be abundantly demonstrative. I'm a user who would like a feature, and continue to wish for it, even after all these years. Maybe it's one you don't need, but it would make my life a lot easier, especially now that I have stacked up 17 years of communication history in this interface.

Thank you.

Comment 17

[tubesing]

To add one additional clarification... at one point someone asked me for an example of when I would need this tool, so at that time (and also in my OP) I provided an example. Your suggested solution only addresses that one example. That doesn't address my issue because it's throwing a (less desirable) solution at an individual example. I'm not merely just trying to address that one individual case. I'm trying to get a better tool to cover lots of different kinds of cases. As another example, say in the course of business I want to browse my email history with a particular vendor where I have interacted with a variety of people who work there with different email addresses of the same domain. If I could easily click "sort by: sender's domain" then I could quickly see all those emails in a particular folder sorted by their addresses to be able to browse through them, maybe looking for something, maybe trying to remember someone's name, or get an idea of the date that a particular deal was made or the span over which we communicated and so on. Sorting right there in the folder is incredibly useful, just like sorting by date or subject would be, as it's not a list of search results, it's my actual emails, in the place where they live, where I put them and where I go to see them. this is a better way for me to be able to quickly find, sort, and view so many different kinds of things, right there in the folder. I hope that helps.

Thanks.

Comment 18

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

Attachment: Screenshot 1: Quick Filter Bar: Rapid per-folder inline filtering, here: filtering for messages having sender from @amazon domain

(In reply to tubesing from comment #16)

Hello tubesing, your feedback is valued. I believe I have good news for you.

As my most important communications tool, Tbird is a vast mission-critical database for me. I now have 17 years of emails in Tbird

Thanks for sharing that! Database is absolutely the right way of looking at it...

the search tool simply doesn't work very well for what I'm trying to accomplish. Plus I find it a frustrating tool to use... It's clumsy, it can't directly search by mailbox, that's a separate filtering step that doesn't show them all, it forces messages into single threads (then opens them all as individual messages when clicked), and most importantly, in order to search for something you have to know exactly what it is you're searching for, whereas sorting a folder gives you another way to browse for something if you're unsure about the exact details. Searching is also a MANY step process...

From reading this, I am now pretty sure that you are using the wrong type of search inside Thunderbird, namely Global Search (Ctrl+K, with result previews, facets and all, based on Gloda, a global database). Global search can be great to find the needle in the haystack, it's much better for fulltext search, but overall yes, I'd agree it's too clumsy for everyday simple searches.

whereas filtering by sender's address would be an easy one or two click operation to rearrange the folder contents

Here's good news for you: The two-click filtering by sender which you're requesting here already exists!
You definitely have to try Quick Filter Bar (Ctrl+Shift+K), which is a per-folder filter right there inside your folder, at your fingertips (see screenshot!!!). As easy as 1, 2, 3... for your usecase, just type @amazon and remove Subject and Recipient quick filter facets to filter for all communications where they are the sender, regardless of their display names or local parts of email address used!
Please report back if that's better than Global search (Ctrl+K) which you were using before...

... but it would make my life a lot easier, especially now that I have stacked up 17 years of communication history in this interface.

Have you tried some other search/filter goodies?

• ≡ > Find > Search Messages (Ctrl+Shift+F), aka Advanced Search?
• At the bottom of Advanced Search dialog, there's a button, Save as Search Folder, which gives you a virtual search folder auto-filtering messages with any complex criteria of your choice. Note that Search Folders show the original messages, so deleting from Search folder always deletes the real message.
• To filter your incoming messages into folders and more, try ≡ > Tools > Message Filters...

Comment 19

[tubesing]

Thanks for your reply. I am familiar with the search tools, and I do use them at times when i need them, especially for the 'needle in the haystack' situations. The quick filter does indeed search within a folder much more easily than the global search. I's a pity that's not the default search tool, and it would be nice if there were a way to make that show instead of the global search in the toolbar.

Regardless, the quick search and global search tools are both for a different purpose than the one I requested... they are used for showing a selection of emails chosen by search parameters, which is useful in some situations, yes. But what I am requesting is a way to see ALL of the emails in a folder (not a selection), sorted by a chosen parameter. I am not trying to FILTER out some emails in a folder, I am trying to SORT all of them. The difference is subtle, and yes the search tools can be a work around for lack of the tool I seek, but they do accomplish a different result.

It's already possible to sort by sender, so I use that with some success, but the problem there is that what is shown in that column the sender can show as either an email address or a nickname. This wouldn't solve my entire request (because it would still important to be able to sort by sender's domain), but as a compromise it sure would be nice if at least I could force that column to show the actual address instead of nicknames. That wouldn't solve the entire problem, but it would make make some situations easier.

Thanks again.