All other mail clients showed the correct hierarchy except Thunderbird.

So this is an IMAP account and you're talking about folders created on the server, right?

Sounds like a glitch that merely restarting Thunderbird might fix. Have you tried that?

Yes, I restart Thunderbird a lot. I've never seen an app be as confusing and inconsistent as Thunderbird. The whole folders sidepanel is a mess. Not at all intuitive. I'm sooo confused. Accounts show up in random places. Folders sometimes show under Inbox in Unified, some don't. Some don't appear at all.

What's going on?

re :Secondly, I post comments on the thunderbird blog regularly but they never show up. Where are they disappearing to? Are you receiving them?

All comments posted in the Supportr Forum get entered into the question, but there is an issue at the moment which developers are supposed to be working on - normally all posted comments send an email to anyone following the question, but it seems this is not occurring.

• View > Folders > All

This is the basic normal hierarchy which most people use and is selected by default. It lists each mail account in the order determined by however you have sorted them in the Account Settings. Below each mail account will be a list of that mail accounts folders. The default folders are listed first followed by any folders you create in alphabetical order.

• View > Folders > Unified

This is useful if you have several mail accounts and want to be able to check eg: the Inbox for all accounts in one folder view. That is called the Unified Inbox folder and it's a virtual folder like a collected search result of all emails in all the mail account Inboxes. It will have a list of subfolders, but those subfolders are only the individual real Inboxes for all accounts.

So - the Folder Pane will look like this - all default folders followed by mail accounts containing non default folders.

Unified Inbox >> Account A Inbox >> Account B Inbox >> Account C Inbox Unified Drafts >> Account A Drafts >> Account B Drafts >> Account C Drafts Unified Templates >> Account A Templates >> Account B Templates >> Account C Templates Unified Sent >> Account A Sent >> Account B Sent >> Account C Sent

I'm sure you get the idea....this is repeated for Archives, Junk and Deleted.

Then you will see a list of the remainder. Each mail account will be listed in order and each account will contain all the folders that you have created for each account.

re: Folders sometimes show under Inbox in Unified, some don't. If you find here is an account which is not displaying it's eg: Inbox in the Unified Inbox folder:

• Right click on the Unified Inbox and select 'Properties'
• Make sure all of your accounts have got the 'Inbox' checkbox selected, then click on 'Update'

If you have created subfolders to an Inbox, then you have a choice - if you want them included in the Unified Inbox you will need to select those checkboxes as well. However, some people want to keep their Inboxes to purely display new Incoming mail which has not been organised into other folders regardless of whether those folders were created as Inbox subfolders. This means it's less confusing when organising emails. In that case, the Inbox subfolders will appear in the mail account list of folders situated below all the Unified Folders.

If Unified view is too confusing then do not use it. View > Folders > uncheck 'Unified' and make sure 'All is the only one selected.