The Sort ... option lets you specify the order in which mail messages should be listed in the Folder Contents area of the Main window.
To specify the sort order of messages, click the Sort ... option. The Sort Specification window appears, in which you can:
The Sort Specification window contains a row of toggle buttons, each of which controls an associated sort key. Adjacent to each sort key is a pair of radio buttons for controlling sort direction-either ascending or descending. (For alphabetical characters, ascending order is A to Z; descending order is Z to A.) The radio buttons for the Status key act differently, in that they select between the sort orders New, Unread, and Other and Other, Unread, and New.
When you toggle On a button that corresponds to a sort key, a number appears in the Order column to the left of the buttons. The number indicates the precedence of the sort key. The first key you toggle On becomes key 1, the second becomes key 2, and so on. Conversely, if you toggle a button Off, the corresponding sort key is removed and the number is removed from the Order column. The other sort keys are renumbered. You can specify any or all eight sort keys and any order of direction in your sort specification.
There are eight possible sort keys.
A line is counted as a string of characters ending with a newline character.
Only the characters in the message body are counted, not the characters in the headers.
Select the Thread messages parameter to sort messages by subject thread. Messages will be grouped in the message list according to their subject line (from the Subject: mail header). If you sort in ascending order, the oldest subject is shown first.
To illustrate how this works, consider this example: You have 3 messages in your folder, each with a different subject line. Applying the Thread messages parameter has no apparent, immediate effect. The messages remain sorted by arrival sequence. When new mail with a unique subject arrives it is added to the end of the list, so the list still appears sorted by number. However, when new mail arrives containing a subject line that matches an existing message, the new message appears inserted in the list just after the message with the same subject.
Sort keys are added in the order you select them. Sort criteria is based on this order and on the direction (ascending or descending) of each sort key.
For example, to specify sorting first by Date, descending order (that is, latest message at the top of the message list), then by Status (new messages first, followed by unread messages, then other messages), you would:
Click Descending to select that direction.
Click New, Unread, Other to select that direction.
NOTES:
When you specify a sort for a folder, click the appropriate radio button in the box below the sort keys to make the sort apply to:
Main
window
Folder Contents area.
Main
window
Open Folders
area.
You make this selection by clicking one of the radio buttons in the box below the sort keys.
Apply or cancel your changes using the row of buttons across the bottom of the window. See Applying Your Changes.