Go to the add ons page and search for Manually Sort Folders.

Install that and you can do what you want.

An easy way to bring any file or folder to the top of an alphabetized sort is to rename it with a leading "!" -- e.g. renaming ZoneFiles to !ZoneFiles will put it at the top of the list -- possibly only after closing and reopening the window or application. The ! comes to stand for "my top file," and is easy to ignore in reading so it's not a distraction.

I use this trick all the time in my Windows folders, sometimes avoiding changing a file name that may be linked from elsewhere by creating a shortcut to a file near the bottom of a list that I want first by simply adding the ! to the beginning of the shortcut. So in the same folder I have e.g., !Zebras.doc - Shortcut at the top and Zebras.doc as the unseen file at the bottom of the long list. A double -- !! -- will sort above the !, etc.

RBlanc please try that with your email account names in the Folder Pane and report back how it works.

Good point.

The first requirement for this alphabetizing trick to work is that the name of the folder be renameable. Accounts can be renamed without problem from the (default) email address used by Thunderbird to identify accounts -- changed simply by right clicking the name and typing in a new name in the "Account Name" field.

The second requirement is that the application sort its list alphabetically.

I'm sorry to report that It appears that Thunderbird sorts the list of accounts by the order in which they were created, so the trick is useless in this case. But it's still a nice trick where the sort actually IS alphabetical.

Bingo!