How do I unthread an individual email which has been wrongly threaded?
The concept of threading is great, but sometimes I cannot see any reason why an email has been threaded the way it has. I can't really understand the rules it uses. When I am simply moving a reply or forwarded email from Sent Mail to Inbox it usually works great but if it has gone wrong I want to be able to unthread it. An email which has been wrongly threaded can seem to disappear. When I have found it I may want to isolate it or put it in a different thread.
Chosen solution
My question has not exactly been answered but I have given a thumbs up to Jonathan's post on the ideas page. This will solve my problem if it is ever implemented. Meanwhile I shall mark this as solved and live with the inadequacy of threading as currently implemented.
Read this answer in context 👍 1All Replies (7)
Please explain a message becomes wrongly threaded. Threading links messages with same topic and sending/receiving participants and is done by Thunderbird.
I cannot find an example now as I managed to unravel the latest case, though I cannot remember how I did it. I think two threads intentionally in the same local folder were joined, so I moved the top thread to another folder. This worked temporarily but on moving it back it rejoined the other thread. In this case it may have happened when I did a Reply All just to get all the same participants but deleted the original content and changed the subject as I wanted to start a new thread. I know it has happened when neither the subject nor the participants were the same but I cannot remember what I was doing that time. In either case I want to know how to divide a thread or to unthread an individual email. I shall have to re-open this query next time I get a threading error.
Didn't take long. I had simply moved the "Re: Fwd: Re: New Year Plans" email from Sent Mail to Inbox, which mysteriously threaded the "Spring Offers now on" email to the "Fwd: Re: New Year Plans" thread, with which it has nothing in common.
Well, since threading is administered by Thunderbird, my suggestion is to unthread the folder, make the desired adjustments, and then rethread the folder. Letting Thunderbird make the connections will prevent future issues.
Unthreading messages can sometimes be done by editing the Subject or References header, with an add-on such as Header Tools Lite. There is also an add-on for editing the Subject only.
msturdy77 said
I cannot find an example now as I managed to unravel the latest case, though I cannot remember how I did it. I think two threads intentionally in the same local folder were joined, so I moved the top thread to another folder. This worked temporarily but on moving it back it rejoined the other thread. In this case it may have happened when I did a Reply All just to get all the same participants but deleted the original content and changed the subject as I wanted to start a new thread. I know it has happened when neither the subject nor the participants were the same but I cannot remember what I was doing that time. In either case I want to know how to divide a thread or to unthread an individual email. I shall have to re-open this query next time I get a threading error.
If you go to the Ideas page, https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/email-thread-manipulation/idc-p/28039/emcs_t/S2h8ZW1haWx8dG9waWNfc3Vic2NyaXB0aW9ufExGUzlSVFdYVENXVTFOfDI4MDM5fFNVQlNDUklQVElPTlN8aEs#M15557 Give my idea a Thumbs UP, we might get Mozilla to give us User Thread functionality :-)
Chosen Solution
My question has not exactly been answered but I have given a thumbs up to Jonathan's post on the ideas page. This will solve my problem if it is ever implemented. Meanwhile I shall mark this as solved and live with the inadequacy of threading as currently implemented.