Change sort to ascending globally?

Question

Change sort to ascending globally?

Mail's default sort is "Date Received," ascending. I have over 100 mailboxes and I'd like the default sort to be "Date Received" descending. I prefer the latest email on top. Doesn't everyone?

Rather than click the header bar in every mailbox I'm trying to find where I can change the key.

I've been searching the files in User > Library > Mail for the strings "ascending" and "descending" returning zippo.

Anyone know which key in which plist this option is stored?

Pro 2.53, Mac OS X (10.6.1), Pro 17"; Air; G5; eMac; Yosemite; iMacs: slot, orig; Performa; Macintosh; III, 2e, 2c

Posted on Sep 22, 2009 9:01 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Golden Shoes

Level 5

4,020 points

Sep 22, 2009 10:47 AM in response to Wm Leslie Howard

Greetings,

This item is stored in com.apple.mail.plist, under the Dictionary of "InboxViewerAttributes". You would need to change the Key "SortedDescending" to "Yes", and save the changes. You cannot be running Mail when you do this.

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Answer 2

Sep 22, 2009 12:56 PM in response to Golden Shoes

I'm looking in the "preferences" dir and no such file.

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Answer 3

Sep 22, 2009 12:57 PM in response to Wm Leslie Howard

Forgot to say thanks for responding!

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Answer 4

Sep 22, 2009 1:05 PM in response to Wm Leslie Howard

If you don't see it, then you're looking in the wrong place. Mail cannot function without that file. It's in your Users (aka Home)/Library/Preferences folder. Check again; it is there.

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Answer 5

Sep 22, 2009 1:11 PM in response to Golden Shoes

Ha. That's where I thought I was, but I was up a few levels. Perfect.

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Answer 6

Sep 22, 2009 1:36 PM in response to Golden Shoes

Well now I'm really confused. The default is YES for descending. But I've never operated any OSX machine (I have 6) that did that in my many IMAP folders. They all come in in ascending order until I click the heading bar. Resaving the plist a couple of times using both toggles didn't change the order in IMAP dirs. I'm going to try this again not only closing Mail but relogging in just to make sure. Thanks for all your help, GS.

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Answer 7

Sep 22, 2009 3:07 PM in response to Golden Shoes

Aha. Well this does effect message sorting in the Inbox, but none of the subfolders brought in from my IMAP servers (again, I have over 100) are effected. They are all in ascending order. Big pain.

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Answer 8

Sep 22, 2009 3:11 PM in response to Wm Leslie Howard

Well, then it could simply be a function of Gmail's unique, non-standard implementation of IMAP. I never use IMAP and that's just one more reason why I wouldn't even think of it. Sorry.

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Answer 9

Sep 22, 2009 3:42 PM in response to Golden Shoes

Oh it's not Gmail, they are my servers. Been using IMAP since '99. It's very, very handy when you have to handle lots of email filters and want all your email (including Drafts and Sents) to be exactly the same wherever and whenever you log on. I'll ask the Dreamhost gurus what they know. Thanks again. Sure appreciate the help!

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Answer 10

Sep 22, 2009 3:59 PM in response to Golden Shoes

To make things more irritating, I logged into the online interface (Squirrel Mail) and low and behold, the sub dirs that are in descending order in Mail are loading in ascending order online, just the way I want them. So now we're back to an Apple issue.

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Answer 11

cbparker

Level 1

0 points

Sep 24, 2009 5:16 PM in response to Wm Leslie Howard

I want mail to sort ascending. I have edited the plist with mail closed. When I first open mail, it is correct, but it resets to descending when I click off the window.

It started abruptly about two days ago.

I set up a mail account in my test account and there was no problem, but darn if I can figure out what was the problem and why the setting is not saved.

It is a small thing, but I have so much muscle memory built up that it is killing me.

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Answer 12

Sep 24, 2009 7:25 PM in response to cbparker

cbparker wrote:
I set up a mail account in my test account and there was no problem, but darn if I can figure out >what was the problem and why the setting is not saved.

Then your Mail preferences file is corrupt. If you setup all your account(s) in your test account, you can copy that preference file over to your regular user account and overwrite the old one, which should then solve your problem. Of course, Mail cannot be running when you do that.

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Answer 13

cbparker

Level 1

0 points

Sep 25, 2009 4:41 AM in response to Golden Shoes

It turned out to be sneakier than a corrupt preferences file.

I copied the com.apple.mail.plist and Mail folder from my library to the desktop and set up a pop account for a test. I still got the strange sorting behavior.

I logged in without my login items turned on and everything worked. Going through my login items one at a time, I found that it was Default Folder X 4.3.1 that was the problem. When I turned it off, everything went back to normal.

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Answer 14

Sep 25, 2009 9:49 AM in response to cbparker

WOW! Default Folder was causing this issue with me. Amazing.

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Answer 15

cbparker

Level 1

0 points

Sep 29, 2009 11:46 AM in response to timurray2000

Please report this to St. Clair Software. I have emailed them and they are graciously working with me trying to figure out what is special about my system that would cause this behavior.

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