Thunderbird

In the Settings, search for Config Editor and click the button Config Editor…

There search for mailnews.default and from the results change the following:

Preference Name                      Value
mailnews.default_news_sort_order:    x
mailnews.default_news_sort_type:     y
mailnews.default_sort_order:         x
mailnews.default_sort_type:          y

to change the value double-click it or use the pencil button at the end of the row

Where for x choose one of the following (documentation):

1 = Ascending
2 = Descending

And for y choose one of the following (documentation):

17 = None
18 = Date
19 = Subject
20 = Author
21 = ID (Order Received)
22 = Thread
23 = Priority
24 = Status
25 = Size
26 = Flagged
27 = Unread
28 = Recipient
29 = Location
30 = Label
31 = Junk Status
32 = Attachments
33 = Account
34 = Custom
35 = Received

so if you want to sort all mail by descending date set the values as follows:

mailnews.default_sort_order:    2
mailnews.default_sort_type:     18

source

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