Thunderbird does not show if a received email is marked “urgent” or not.

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Thunderbird does not show if a received email is marked “urgent” or not.

I started to use TB two weeks ago, and everything has been quite easy to figure out, so far.

But not now: I have scoured the Web looking for a explanation of how to get “Thunderbird” to do this very basic and necessary thing, but come out empty-handed. And this very rarely happens to me when searching for something I need to find. Having had to do this quite frequently, for a number of years already, often to find articles on something weird I am researching as part of my work, does help. Except now.

If anyone has some practical suggestions on how to make TB change its mind and reveal, just by looking at the list of received emails in the inbox, as well as the open email itself, if the email is urgent or not, I’ll be very grateful.

I have Thunderbird v18.13.0. My machine is a Mac (details in my signature panel, below), but I would be surprised to learn that this can make a difference, as marking email as “urgent” is a very common and basic thing. And what I have seen of the version for Windows it all looks the same as what I see when I use TB.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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I think you should look at the ‘Priority column’

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Alex: And where (and what) is the “Priority Column? I am new to this, as I think I mentioned. So my knowledge of TB terminology is less than outstanding.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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With the priority column showing, you get a view on the mail list screen, but when you open the mail in a window there is no sign of the priority and I can’t see a way to show it.

cheers, Paul

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I never used tagging in the old(er) TB so hadn’t noticed when it was removed.

This may help: https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/tag-toolbar/

Or, in Thunderbird:
Tools > Add-ons > Recommendations > [ 10th down in my list ] ==>

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After some experimentation, found a solution.
Overview: Priority column; Create a Filter, which Tags an incoming high-priority message.

1 – As Alex and Paul_T note: Display the Priority in the Mail List panel

2 – Tools > Message Filters > New

Note that there are many criteria and powerful actions available.

3 – To demonstrate: Create an email, give it an increased Priority; Send it

4 -Read in Email

5 – For the colors to associate with various tags,
Tools > Options > General > [about half way down a long page] Tags

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PaulK: Thanks.

Unfortunately none of the things you are showing in those screenshots exists in my version of TB: 78.13.0 for Macs. It should have the same user interface as for Windows and Linux, but it does not, at least when compared to the one of your version.

The only thing I can do, apparently, and have done already days ago, is to set the “priority tag” to bright red for high priority ones (i.e. “important” in TB-ese, I guess) in:
“Preferences    Tags.”

It has not worked, as all the stars in the left pane, to the left of the “subject” column, where the received emails are listed by subject (is this stars column the “priority column”?), are not colored inside, just with the same off-white as the rest of the left pane, although I have high priority emails there that, as a test, I have sent myself from another email client, where they are clearly marked as “high priority”.

There might be a way to force this version of Thunderbird to display message priorities same as any other email client does, by fiddling with the corresponding entries in “About Config”, but it involves changing several things, removing what is there and replacing it with a different entry. I am not eager to do that: it seems too tricky to me and likely to go wrong at the smallest mistake, or “just because”, or because this advice, that I have found on the Web, is wrong, or does not apply to my version of TB.

The one and only thing resembling what your screenshots show, is the one you can see below, of the relevant part of an open received email that was sent to me with high priority, but this does not show in the stars or in the email itself; the list of what I can do about it is a very shortened version of yours and the items in the drop-down menu are not called in the same way:

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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And I just got an email marked as “high priority” by the sender that does not show as high priority, but as with the, by now, usual unmarked priority in TB.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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My graphics also are 78, so there are no version differences, perhaps just Windows vs. Mac.
Your illustration is similar to what I have on the actual mail pane. But –
See my graphics 1 and 4 – do you not have a ‘Mail List’ pane showing above it?
Do you have something like this: View > Layout > Classic View ?

In graphic 1, the ‘List’ pane, click on the small symbol at the far right end of the headings line.

And, can you create a filter, as shown in graphics 2 and 3? This really is the heart of it.

What you have illustrated is the way that one can set a tag individually while viewing an email. What occurs when you click on one of the colored tags?

A filter automatically can set a tag when the email is being read in.

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Paul, I did as you have shown in your previous comment, and:

(1) I got the same drop down menu from “View” you showed in your comment.

(2) I had everything there the same as you, except that I had selected “Vertical” view instead of “Classic view.” So, as an experiment, I switched to “Classic.” This still did not reveal any difference between urgent and ordinary comments, so nothing changed, except that the right pane was now beneath the left pane. And that the ordering by date of the emails in my mailbox was completely mixed up, with emails from different months listed next to each other.

I returned to the “vertical” settings but the ordering of the emails remained messed up.

The only way to get rid of the mixed-up received emails’ list was to restart the Mac. Then everything looked normal again, except that the urgent emails still are not indicated in any way whatsoever that is different for the regular ones, so they cannot be told apart. (Do you know what those little curved purple arrows mean?)

So this is starting to look like there is a problem with the version for Macs.

 

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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After this very helpful discussion, I have to conclude that my problems are caused by my version of TB for Macs being not such a great email client. But it could be worse. I’ll continue using it; if I find more problems, then I’ll have to find some better alternative and use that instead.

Thank you, PaulK, Paul_T and Alex.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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And just like that (not really) TB is now showing the urgent messages marked clearly as such in the Inbox list of messages, with those that are “urgent” written in bright red.

How this came about, thanks to the patient guidance of PaulK that held my hand and lead me through the dark and scary passage, is a story that I’ll come back to tell here, tomorrow, Ida allowing, or when she is gone to bother people further north up the coast, on Thursday, if there is no blackout to delay my storytelling further.

So, anyhow: Thanks, PaulK!

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Ida is still on her way and I have a moment right now, so here it goes:

Paul K description of the process:

Here is the flow:
Email comes in to TB from ISP
(Insert the filter here. More on this below.)
TB puts email in the Inbox.
TB displays email to user.

Filter:
Note that one of the check boxes (on the Filter Rules panel) is
Apply filter when: … Getting New Mail:
So, whatever is defined in the filter is performed BEFORE the email gets to the Inbox.

Review the settings that you put in, and pretend that you are an incoming email. Do this 2 ways: you are not urgent; and are urgent. Follow the logic in each case.

Oh, and … Note that the filter also is authorized to run Manually. So? So run it against the Inbox*, as is. IF there are existing ‘urgent’ emails already there, the filter will apply the tag, and you’ll see them turn red. Have you suspected ‘Urgent’ emails in other mail folders too? Direct the filter to those folders, and run the filter.
– – – – – – –
* Note that you direct the filter to a mail folder by selecting that folder at the bottom of the ‘first panel’ of Filters. The usual direction is to the Inbox because that is the ‘first point of contact’ as an email is entering TB.

And mine, in the five attached pictures.

Note: In picture 2, after opening the dialog boxes as shown, click on color color in the left box  to chose this as the one to be given to Urgent messages (I chose red.)

 

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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I have the same version of Thunderbird on my Mac. The context ment you need is here:

The dropdown looks like this:

Check to add the column “Priority” – it will put a red “!” in the column if the email is set as important/urgent by the sender. You can mofe the columns in that headeer bar by dragging and dropping to the left if you want the marker on the left side.
From that menu, you can choose whatever col’s you want to see. At the bottom you can choose to make all the children folders the same, so if you do it to the main folder you can have the same choices everywhere. (But you will want different col’s in Inbox and Sent, for example.

2 users thanked author for this post.

OscarCP, PaulK

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PK,

Thanks.

At least the way we did it yesterday with PaulK, my Thunderbird window looks like this in my Mac (details in signature panel).

Following your advice, I have extended the way urgent messages and etc. are displayed in the children folders.

So it is not red arrows, but all the text in the row of each received email that is in red :

 

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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And this is the screenshot showing what I mean by “is not red arrows”:

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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For security reasons, I have removed the attachment with “real” email addresses. Please block the personal information of ANYONE when you post an attachment.

There are NO red arrows – read my post again. Checking “Priority” in that menu creates a column in the email display (along with Subject, Correspondents, the “paper clip” for attachments, etc). If the message is important/urgent it will display a red “!” in the “Priority” col. The red subject does the same thing.

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Actuality in the Priority column I get “High” or “Highest” in red, not “!” (or “!!”, I presume?) in red. I meant to write “exclamation marks”, but I am rather distracted today because of something unrelated to any of this, and wrote “arrows” instead.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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PaulK wrote:

5 – For the colors to associate with various tags,
Tools > Options > General > [about half way down a long page] Tags

To differentiate between the levels of Priority or Urgency:

In Tags, create two New ones: name them: Highest, and High
I gave each a distinct color.
(Getting a color proved to be a bit tricky, one has to “Add to custom colors”.)

You’ll now need two Filters, one each for Highest and High.

Works like a charm. (Dummy Subjects and Texts, just to have something.)

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Thanks, Paul. The odd thing, as I mentioned earlier, is that “my” TB now displays the priority of the message in red, yes, but in red words: Highest”, “High”, other than normal and below normal priority (hakuna matata?), that seem not to be marked at all.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Re.: ‘Priority > Normal’ not colored.
Well, yes. Look at the definition in your filter. What is the filtering criterion?
IF [ Condition A ] then DO [ Something A ]
IF [ Condition B ] then DO [ Something B ]
. . .

This is classic programming “IF … THEN”
Sometimes the programming is “IF … THEN … ELSE”, where the ELSE may branch, that is, bypass following statements.

This is the way it works. When the IF condition fails (is not true), then the DO is not done.

The color does not have to be Red, you can specify anything you want. To the right of the Tag Name: box is an icon, click on it to bring up a color palette.

If you want also to Do something special with the other possible incoming Priority emails, then create an additional filter for each one, specifying what you want the result to be.

(Notice here!: The sentence above is an IF … THEN. IF [ you want … ], THEN [ create …]. Neat, right? Programming is just a more rigid and formalized way of doing things logically.)

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Thanks Paul, I don’t mind red, and if I get low priority mail that the Junk filter does not sent directly to the Junk folder (that I later examine before flushing it, in case something OK got sent there by mistake), most likely I recognize it as such from the subject tittle and, or the sender. In any case, I sort out quickly enough the things in my inbox that are not spam from those that are, and the “good ones”, usually no more than 4 – 6 messages, I scan quickly and some read through if that seems necessary; doing so is part of the daily routine and I am OK with it. The one important thing that remained to be set up and the one you already helped me to get properly set up, is the flagging of the urgent emails received, whether “Highly urgent” or just “Urgent.” (That makes no difference to me.)

It is looking more and more to me that Thunderbird is the creation of hobbyists that enjoy tinkering with software and believe that everyone else is just like them and don’t have better things to do. I hope that I am pretty much done with this enforced tinkering.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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