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I want to change the format of the "Date"-column in the message list in Thunderbird.

For mails from today, I want to display only the time, not the date.
For mails from before today, I want to display only the date, not the time.

This is the same setup mutt uses. I know of the Date display format wiki article, which describes how to change the date format, but you can only switch between five predefined formats, and none of them is "Date only".

I also know of the ConfigDate extension, but it's got the same limitations, you can't define a new date format. (not available anymore)

6 Answers 6

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Assuming I'm reading the source code correctly, this isn't currently possible. The date format is configurable, and can be turned off altogether as noted in the wiki article you referenced, but the time is always shown according to the computer's locale (without seconds).

If you're up for fiddling with the source code, look at the end of the FetchDate function in mailnews/base/src/nsMsgDBView.cpp. You'll need to change kTimeFormatNoSeconds to something else (see the Date and Time Formatting functions page for details).

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9

As of Thunderbird's version 91 it's now officially possible to customize how dates and times are displayed in Thunderbird and the format can be decoupled from your locale setting. You don't have to rely on any addons, it's all done via the inbuilt config editor.

Here's a detailed guide:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/customize-date-time-formats-thunderbird

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    There are two most useful preferences, namely: intl.date_time.pattern_override.date_short and intl.date_time.pattern_override.time_short
    – emont01
    May 4, 2022 at 13:35
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I know it's an old post, but with Thunderbird 91 you can set the preferences in the config editor (this will override the language settings), instructions at:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/customize-date-time-formats-thunderbird
I just added intl.date_time.pattern_override.date_short with value yyyy-MM-dd and, in effect, the date/time column changed (after restart) to the format yyyy-MM-dd, hh:mm

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  • I can confirm that this works in thunderbird 91.8.1 (64-bit)
    – emont01
    May 4, 2022 at 13:32
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Update. There is another addon: Super Date Format.

  1. Install Super Date Format addon
  2. Go to Preferences
  3. Go to Date Format
  4. Insert %Y.%m.%d %H:%M into Date Format
  5. Go to Date Format Preferences
  6. Check Enable on Date column
  7. Check Enable on Received column
  8. Restart Thunderbird

Now all messages can by sorted by date no matter how old. The new format only cosists of numbers.

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Please check new feature available after TB 60+

An option under "Tools > Options, Advanced, General" now allows to select whether date/time display will follow the application locale (adjusted by operating system's format settings for that locale) or the locale selected in the operating system's regional settings. In other words, an US English Thunderbird can use, for example, German formats.

https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/60.0/releasenotes/

enter image description here

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    Unfortunately, it doesn't work. At least not in Linux with en_DK format. And the suggestions on kb.mozillazine.org/Date_display_format don't work either. It's a complete mess...
    – mivk
    Feb 23, 2019 at 13:53
  • See askubuntu.com/a/1185784/714741 for the full workaround regarding ISO-8601 date format in TB 60+. I don't think it is possible anymore to do what OP asked.
    – FichteFoll
    Jan 3, 2020 at 5:06
  • The best I have found on this is Setting date locale no longer works in Thunderbird 60 on linux (LC_TIME=en_DK.utf8 behaves differently than it used to) (very long, but not in gibberish English for a change). It is also referenced in the Ask Ubuntu answer. It includes workarounds, but they may depend on this particular Linux distribution. A summary of it is Bernhard Groll's comment. Jun 5, 2020 at 2:15
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    For Linux, changing Regional Settings will affect the display of dates in Thunderbird, but not in the way you expect! In particular, using ISO 8601 in English does not work any more (it will use a British date format instead). In contrast, setting up for ISO 8601 dates on Windows is possible and very straightforward. What is going on in the Linux world? It is like they go out of their way to alienate users. Like breaking the clipboard (GNOME) or like here, refuse to enable the very basic stuff of using custom date / time formats. Jun 5, 2020 at 2:32
  • Broken clipboard in GNOME - affecting Ubuntu 19.10 and later (still not fixed). Jun 5, 2020 at 3:06
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The other two suggestions (choosing between system and application locales — not flexible enough; super date format — incompatible with latest thunderbird) did not solve the issue in my case (60.5.2 (64-bit)), nor do they seem to address the OP question.

I'm now trying ConfigDate (version 0.8), by Alexander Ihrig

»ConfigDate allows to configure the "Date" column in message threadpane. When displaying the message header, it is possible to display the (default) formated date or the senders local sent time (Date-String).«

It addresses the OP question by offering three different groups: today's emails, this week, older. The options to choose from are not particularly useful according to me, in particular the year-month-time (but no day) is funny. Maybe the author is open to contributions.

Incidentally, this question has no decent implementation yet, after 9 years?

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    This doesn't work with my Thunderbird 60.8.0 on Linux. I ended up installing Enhanced Date Formatter which works well.
    – slybloty
    Sep 9, 2019 at 13:13
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    TB Linux 68.2.2, almost nothing works anymore :-( Only "ConfigDate", and that's not the best...
    – Déjà vu
    Jan 13, 2020 at 17:52

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