I think the damage has been done.

IMHO the change to Correspondents wasn't well thought through and it loses the distinction between "from:" and "recipient:". The developers take the view that if they don't "push" changes, users will never consider using them.But if they are to apply a change unasked-for, then they ought to provide the means to roll it back as well.

45.1.0 does indeed not automatically apply the change, but it can't undo what 45.0.0 did.

I take it you don't have a backup of your pre-45.0.0 profile?

The Correspondents column has been surprisingly divisive. I have been using an add-on that has a very similar effect; what it does seems very logical and efficient to me. But many users, like yourself, find it annoying, and I'm not sure why; doesn't it just show you what you'd have seen anyway?

I file messages, sent and received, together, by topic or correspondent. So I have a mix where I'd need to see both "from" and "recipient" to understand fully what each message was about. "Correspondents" fixes that by listing the other parties to an email conversation. By and large, I don't need to see my own name; I was either the sender or recipient for each message.

Why I hate "Correspondents". I almost always want to find a message by who sent it or who it was sent to. I don't feel like experimenting with all the idiosyncrasies that my be introduced by searching a different way.

So, you are saying that if I upgrade to 45.1 we don't know what will happen?

I don't understand that. The correspondents column tells you either who sent it to you or to whom you sent it. In either case, your own name seems to me to be sort of redundant.

Sorry for the delayed response. Thunderbird thought this was spam.

I have about 30 accounts. It matters to me which account a message came through. I have different "names" for different accounts.