Try this: View > Folders > Unread or Menu Icon > Folders > Unread

To get back to show all folders. View > Folders > All or Menu Icon > Folders > All

While this does NOT solve the search deficiency, it DOES provide a 'work around' that is functional.

Thanks!

Please note that it is not a workaround. It is Thunderbird's built in functionality to display: ALL unread mail in ALL folders in ALL Accounts when you do not want to start opening folders and manually searching for which folders have the unread mail. It is the fastest simplest method of performing this task on all accounts symultaneously.

If you want to perform a search: note that you can only perform a search on a per account basis so would have to repeat for each mail account. It is not the fastest nor most efficient method if you have more than one mail account, but it is another option.

• Edit > Find > Search Messages
• select the mail account
• Select 'search subfolders'
• Select: 'Match all of the following'
• Select: 'Status' and 'Isn't' and 'Read'.
• click on 'Search'

Thanks again! My overlooking of the "isn't" conditional IS egregious. I was so focused on the positive condition (i.e. un-read or new) I did not see the forest for all the trees in the view.

In my individual situation, there is only ONE e-mail account but hundreds of folders, sub-folders, sub-sub-folders etc. Thereby, right clicking of the 'Local Folders' and doing a search (for whatever term or fields) is nearly first nature to me. Going to the menu and altering views...not so much.

Again, thanks for pointing out the forest from the trees!