I just downloaded eM client and I see a preference called “Set default date sort order”. I have this set to “New Messages on Top” but messages are still displaying at the bottom.
Just to be clear: this setting affects the chronological order in which email messages within a conversation appear correct?
I guess it’s worth mentioning that it’s January of 2021 and I see this same issue being raised by other users in previous years so I’m assuming this is a bug in this version of eM (8.1.1015)?
No, this setting affects the order of conversations in the message list. Messages within a conversation have always been ordered with the newest at the bottom, and there is no setting to change that.
If I understood you correctly, I don’t think users will find it useful to display both the Message List and messages within a conversation in ascending chronological order (i.e., newest last).
It’s a shame that there’s no setting to display at the top new messages within conversations. This is a turn off.
Thunderbird still displays the message list with the newest last, so someone must find it useful. I don’t and that is why I proposed allowing the eM Client user to choose for both the message list and the messages within the conversation.
At the time I made the proposal, I also thought so. Somehow, after years of doing this way, I have got used to it.
Just because you or I request a new feature, doesn’t mean that the developers will stop everything else to implement that. Would be nice, but we live in the real world.
All requests are taken seriously, though not all will be implemented.
However, you will be happy to know that our developers have been working on this. I recently commented about this elsewhere:
Hi! I also would like to see conversations ordered with the newest replies at the top, to be consistent with the default message list ordering. Can I confirm that this is not possible with the current 9.1 release of emclient?
In 9.1 we now provide a thread view in the message list, which you can access by clicking on the arrow in the conversation message number. That will expand the thread and display the messages in the list with the newest at the top.
But in the message preview we display the messages in the order you will read them, so starting with the oldest at the top, which is the natural reading order.
Gary – IMHO, I disagree and I don’t think that reading the oldest message first is the natural reading order. In a conversation/email between two individuals, I would not need to read the first/oldest email each time I came back to a conversation/email. I would want to read the newest and look down through the messages if I need to recall something that was said. The option to change the message list order is the exact reason I don’t use EM Client and continue to use the free version of Canary.
Thanks Cyberzork. I’m more concerned with the message list/preview panel. If an email chain is over 12 message, I have had the experience that EM Client does not scroll down to the newest message. I will to see if Thread view helps. It doesn’t change my perspective that the message list order should have an option to be viewed with the new message at the top
No, it automatically scrolls to the oldest unread message. That is the logical place for you to continue reading the conversation. If we took you straight to the last message received, that would be like opening a book and reading from chapter 6, when you haven’t read chapters 3-5. So we take you to a place where you can continue from where you stopped reading before. i.e. the oldest unread message.
Here I am in 2023 trying to make sense of this bizarre eM Client behaviour a week into the trial.
So… it’s newest email first… UNLESS you’re using conversations… then it’s the newest at the bottom underneath previous conversations which may go back years.
If you don’t use conversations you can’t see your own replies in the email thread so you need to use conversation view or else you’re always questioning if you sent a reply when you glance at the email.
Sometimes emails open to the newest email, but sometimes emails open to the first email at the “top” which is years ago.
I’m never, ever, ever going to open these conversations. I need them out of the way at the bottom. Not hovering over the newest email. But again, if I don’t have conversations turned on it won’t show me my reply in the thread.
This isn’t a bug, it’s a feature?
I have really long emails with my clients. I really like eM Client! I’m looking for a paid email client…
But I can’t work like this… Is this really how conversation view works? It’s a deal breaker for me.
I just installed mailspring to see how that works with long emails and it works as I would assume. The newest email is on top and “conversations” are folded up below with a bar “older messages”.
Is Threads view also on Mac? I don’t see how to set this up. I agree that scrolling down to the most recent is counter-intuitive. Our natural reading pattern is right>left, top>bottom. Scrolling to the end to see the most important thing defies good UX. If threads fixes it, happy about that but I can’t find it. I’m also in the trial and see quite a few good things about this to want to continue using it.
Yes. It is a Pro license feature on both Mac and PC.
You don’t need to scroll. Just start reading from the top of those displayed. If you have read the older messages in the conversation before, they will be collapsed so you won’t need to scroll through them. In fact you will need to scroll up to see the collapsed older messages. So clicking on a conversation will start at the oldest unread message, exactly where you need to be to begin reading.
Can you please tell me where it is on Mac or how to use it? I don’t see it. I’m still in the trial period so it should be there right?
Perhaps looking down to the end would have been a better term. Vs. my eyes naturally being at the top of the window. Visual scrolling, as opposed to physical scrolling.
