Quick filter (ctrl+shift+K) does exactly what I think you want here. It searches through the whole 'From' field for 'John' and catches 'John Doe <jdoe@gmail.com>' if Sender is selected.

Well, no, quick filter doesn't (catch John Doe), although I do now notice it catches SOME of them, but not OTHERS. Most of my contacts have just "first name", "last name", "display name" and "e-mail address" filled in, so why it catches some and not others is a mystery!

Incidentally, in my version, it doesn't show "John Doe <jdoe@gmail.com>" in the Sender field, just "John Doe". No idea whether that is a setting, and/or whether it could be related....

When someone sends an email, they may send that email with a Display Name plus email address eg: John Doe <jdoe@gmail.com> or just as an email address eg: jdoe@gmail.com

If the sender included a 'Display Name' that contained 'John', then quick filter will locate 'John' when filtered on 'Sender'. If sender only used email address then John will not be located using 'Sender', because those letters are not in the email address, but 'doe' should be located.

In the Address Book, for that contact, you may have put a name in the 'Display' field and instructed Thunderbird to display that information, but the Quick Filter is not searching on your address book Display Name, it is searching on the 'Sender' - which is the data included in the 'From' field as written in the email.

Hopefully this explains why 'John' is not being located in the 'Quick Filter'.

But if John Doe sent some emails with a Display Name and other emails without, then a Quick Filter search would locate some emails and all of those emails will be the one which had a 'Display Name' included with email address.

However, John may have signed the email as Regards John, so you could locate the email in Quick Filter by searching on 'Body' instead of 'Sender'.

Thanks for clarifying that, Toad, that makes total sense. It is a real shame that Thunderbird quick-filter doesn't "look up" the Display Name from the contacts (which it is doing anyway, to display it!), so if this forum works that way, I would hereby like to request that feature. It is not reasonable to expect end-users to know whether a name "Joe" has or has not been included in the e-mail sender's header, and looking for "John" in 1000+ e-mails is also not a real solution (although it is often the one I'm forced to use).

'which it is doing anyway, to display it!' It isn't here. 'From' displays what the headers say, which is what it should do IMV. But quick filter could use 'greedy' search and look at the address book as well for implicit matches.

Looking for "jdoe@gmail.com" (and probably "jdoe@") will catch all emails from that address but not emails from another address the sender may also use.

In my Thunderbird implementation, the FROM field displays the Display Name, which it must be getting from my Address Book. I don't even see the raw e-mail address, just the display name. But if I then search for one of the terms of that Display Name (e.g. "John"), it doesn't find anything. This is very counter-intuitive.

I forgot this is an option. Switching off 'Show only display name for people in my address book' in Options will at least remove some of the confusion. I personally prefer this switched off anyway because the email address senders choose to use every time is often significant.

The 'FROM' column header will display whatever it is set up to display.

If no Display Name included with email then it displays the email address. If Display Name is included in From email address then that Display Name is shown. If you have the contact in an address book and you have:

• completed the 'Display' field
• selected checkbox to 'always prefer display name over message header'
• Set 'Options' > 'Display' > 'Advanced' - select checkbox 'Show only display name for people in my address book'

Please note: version 78 has lumped a load of disconnected items under 'Options' > 'General' and you need to scroll to find it. then whatever you set up will override any display name included in email and where no display name was included, then your chosen 'display name' will be used.

That is correct. I use this option because I work with kids, who often use their parent's e-mail address. I want to file it under the kid's name (I rarely know their parent's name). But my point was that Thunderbird "looks up" the Display Name in the address book while displaying, so if it can do that, surely it can't be that hard to program it that it also does the same look up ('greedy', if you like) in the quick-filter. Anyway, it is what it is.

The 'From' column header is hooked up to use the 'Display' name as described previously, if selected.

There are different search methods in Thunderbird that work to perform different kinds of search. You would need to use the correct search method depending upon what you are searching for.

Quick Filter - on selected folder filtering on 'sender, recipient, subject, body' - this is specific on information in the actual email in the selected folder. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/quick-filter-toolbar

Global search - this is a database in it's own right stored in the profile name folder, it searches on messages mentioning specific parameters, although this method also offers specific email address and will display the Display name for email addresses if available. It covers folders in various accounts. The returned list can be further filtered. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/global-search

Menu app icon > Find > Search Messages (or via the Menu Bar toolbar 'Edit' > 'Find') searches on a wider range of email header information, allows for more than one search condition and can search on specific folders on various accounts, so tailored. Searches can be saved as a folder and conditions modified to update results.

The global search which is only just above the quick search already offers an immediate option to see a Display Name (please note - a change/modification in Display Name since starting Thunderbird, may not display the same in the search - exiting and restarting Thunderbird should get the database file updated to reflect a recent change.

These various search filters have been in place for a long time. It is not always that simple to change something perceived as should be easy to do. As the methodology is already available, I cannot see anyone affording/volunteering time to alter something that does it's specific job.

Thanks guys,

I understand. As I mentioned, it is what it is.

But for the record, your third option (search via Edit-Find), which admittedly I wasn't aware of, seems to have the same problem that it misses Johns in "jdoe@gmail.com" if you search on "From"-"Contains" "John", so doesn't seem to help. I don't think I can search on Display Name instead (would be good....).

What remains is the second "global" option, which is a rather wieldy search (as - even filtered - it returns a lot of hits, which include all e-mails that merely mention the word "john". I can somewhat reduce that list with sub-filters, but I never get a really easy-to-work sublist, and it takes quite a few actions (unlike quick-filter, which is ...quick!).

My e-mails are orginised in very large folders, and I rely heavily on search functions to find my e-mails quickly, that's why I'm going on about this issue.