Change the format of the date column in Thunderbird

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)

Solution 1:

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).

Solution 2:

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.

Solution 3:

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/

Solution 4:

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?