Mail "Organize by Conversation", grouping rule is changed?

Honestly I think this may have been what some programmer envisioned as the "right" way to sort e-mail. For someone dealing with a "customer" on a specific problem it's easier to sort by that unique ID and not have to sort out other e-mail that may be titled the same. I suspect the development team reads this forum and "may" take complaints into account on a future upgrade. My personal opinion is they should allow you to choose how you want to sort - by subject line or by "reference" but that might require a significant coding effort. We can only hope...

I agee, that we should be able to choose the threading method... the new way make sense when dealing with mails from a human conversation since reference id headers are populated. When dealing with hundreds of mail from automated systems or cron daemon... The old way is way better.

I'm in the same boat, what is going on with this, I get 200 QA emails daily that I used to archive in a single click. Now I need to select them all one by one. rubbish.

I get hourly e-mails from my weather station that used to group together but like you I now have to select them individually. I wonder if Apple does indeed have silent trolls out there watching the boards to see what is bubbling up - and the more complaints you have on a particular subject, the more attention it gets in new "releases."

I'm pretty sure the s/w engineer thought he was solving a problem for someone but didn't consider the implications on those who were using the function as it existed in the old version. Something I think our educational institutions need to incorporate in their fundamental design courses - consider the law of unintended consequences....

Did anyone has a chance to test Mail in 10.11.2 second beta? Still broken conversations? I had to quit beta testing program, all my patience is gone ... 😠 Thx, this issue is so annoying, tons of cron reports and arpwatch messages one by one... Glad there is google inbox, where I can handle those as one conversation 😐

I created bug in Apple Bug Reporter. #23408553

+1 - initially I was annoyed by this feature but have grown to like it and of course they make it not work any more. Like several other posts in this thread I have automated e-mails that were previously grouped together that are not grouped any more.

I also submitted a bug in Apple Bug Reporter #23462370

Apple Developer Relations12-Nov-2015 02:05 AM

Engineering has determined that your bug report is a duplicate of another issue (20474239) and will be closed.

I might also go back to Time Machine to reinstall the last version...I haven't found any upgrades in El Capitan so far that have been useful to me, but a couple (this one included) that are a nuisance.

I have exactly the same issue... impossible to use this email client anymore... do somebody know a workaround??

There is no good workaround, I think apple will never revert mail client behaviour.

Any news on this issue?

I'm on 10.11.3 (15D13b) and still same bad behavior... I am using google mail app more and more because this problem makes Mail app difficult to use on daily base.

I too have this problem. All my support emails that come through from Desk.com get a different Reference/Message ID generated if the reply comes direct from the application (rather than a "Reply above the line" response from within Mail.app itself). This means one case—identical subject line, continued conversation—will be exploded apart into yet another new thread, every time someone responds from the web, rather than from their email client.

Work has suddenly become very difficult to manage!

I've sent feedback via http://www.apple.com/feedback/mail.html. I suggest you do the same, if you're sugaring the same problem.

I have two other IMAP accounts besides my iCloud account, and all are acting the same way. I have a number of Rules set to copy (not move) messages from my Inbox to specific folders and sub-folders to sort my mail. When I check the IMAP accounts, I'm used to (in Yosemite and before) the read/unread flags affecting not only the message I've actually opened (or just previewed) but all copies as well because of the way Conversations grouped by Subject. This meant I could read mail sorted in their respective folders first and then upon returning to my Inbox know immediately what messages needed my attention. I could just delete the marked-read messages and concentrate on those remaining as "unread".

But now, it doesn't matter whether I read the message in my Inbox first or in one of the Rules folders first... the read/unread flag only affects that particular copy of the message I've read, regardless of conversation or not, multiple copies in multiple folders or not. And I also see that previously-grouped messages are now standalone, so the folders are filled to overflowing with individual messages instead of a handful of grouped conversations.

I've tried everything short of rebuilding the mailboxes (there are a lot of them). I thought I'd try that, then I discovered this thread, so apparently that would be a waste of time.

Sadly, I spoke with Apple Support and the tech didn't acknowledge what has obviously been a longstanding problem.

:-(