I've had enough of this bunk conversation "feature." F you very much Google. Yahoo mail I'm coming back. Bing, oh Bing come here please. I need a new search engine.

OMG, this issue still persists!
I was using gmail for some time, but never seriously.
Only recently when I want to use gmail as my main email address, the problems come... and so many unwanted features!
Why can't people in Gmail do something in the last several years?
Luckily I still have my old nice yahoo/msn account

Its a silly feature and recommending people to "get used to it" fails to take into account that it uses up a hell of a lot of bandwidth on mobile devices and imap clients. I use gnus and HATE seeing my "sent" mails in my INBOX as new INBOX messages. It's lame and there ought to be a way to disable it. I'm thinking of dumping gmail as a result - were it not for its tight integration into Android I would.

Hmm. Damn. I came here while looking for a way to turn this threading feature off. Sigh...

Will now go to http://productideas.appspot.com/#16/e=4a51a and suggest it the Google. See if it helps..

The subject grouping may be the greatest thing in the world, but good software would allow you to turn this off.
Nice to see that even Google fails sometimes.

The biggest problem I have is when there are several people in on a conversation in the same thread... if I open one, it shows I've read them all when I havent... Or if a person responds twice before I reply, I may only see one... I miss emails as a result all the time... so i cant switch over all my contacts... which bites becasue its the only email that works properly with the Droid.

Oh dear, I was hoping for a way to un-thread my mails. I help to run a small charity and we often miss replies because of the threading. Another quite serious issue is accidentally forwarding a thread instead of a single message, which could cause privacy issues.
Lots of people seem to think it's a great feature and it can be for some uses, but it would be better if it was optional. The search facility is excellent so threads aren't needed really.

Being primarily a yahoo mail user I set up a gmail account to see how it works. I find the mandatory threading maddeningly frustrating too. I DO NOT HAVE TIME OR DESIRE TO SPEND A "FEW WEEKS" LEARNING SOMETHING THAT ~I~ DON'T NEED JUST BECAUSE ~YOU~ THINK IT"S A GREAT IDEA! (forgive the caps - sometimes it is appropriate). It should be an optional feature, and the duration of this thread proves that Google is unfortunately developing a "big brother" attitude that, sadly, will be their downfall. On a related vein, I switched my home page to Bing after the recent Google pacman fiasco. Google - I loved your original concept. Sorry to see you go down this path.

Anyone remember "AOL". If I had time I'd start a thread for the creative associations that acronym came to engender ;-/

Have just come to gmail and I'm staggered to find that there isn't an option to turn off conversation view. That way everyone would be happy! There are so many settings options for things which are far less important: threading is 'in your face' everytime you open gmail. Developers obviously consider it wonderful and appreciated by all: they should read this comment thread!

I think it just goes to show that a 4 year old post that is still alive proves that Google should be considering this at least as a labs feature.

Pleeeaase make threading optional. It is such an irritating "feature".

I came is search of an answer but instead found a load of others with the same infuriation. Come on Google, allow me to de-thread my messages or else I'll have to continue to use an IMAP client and miss out on all that additional superfluous content you're trying to force feed me through the "sponsored links" in the web client.

Google messaging threading is nasty.

I will stop the feature "Forwarding"

If selected, Google will forward the first one, but if another e-mail merges in a conversation with it, this second one (and the subsequent ones) will remain there forever and will never be forwarded.

So what's the point of the Forward option if "Conversation" kills it?

Any suggestion?

I hate it too! I wish you could customize it to act like outlook, where you can CHOOSE how to sort it instead of only having the convo-sort option. Sometimes I forward things and then I can't tell if the forward went to the person or not! REALLY CONFUSING. The only good thing about gmail is their spam filtering. The view sucks!

I HATE the feature very very very much! How can I diaable it??????????

I hate it to. I prefer no conversations.

The threaded mail is quite a cool feature - but I don't understand Googles reason for not allowing it to be turned off.

I'm finding that sometimes the newest message is not at the bottom - but second or third from. I presume it's something to do with time/date settings on different senders PC's? This makes some threads difficult to follow as the order gets messed up.

Also (or alternatively) how about putting new messages at the top? I have one conversation with over 500 messages. It takes a while to scroll through even the collapsed messages then hunt for the new one.

Yes this quirk gets really annoying when you are waiting for an email reply and discover it's been sent to yr mail weeks ago... or probably you'll never know if you didn't happen to search your old threads.

I'm now forwarding some of my mails to my other account but surely there's a better solution out there??

GOOGLE - Are you listening?!?!?! The people have spoken. Give us an option to turn this OFF!

I have tried "getting used to" this feature - I cannot tell you the number of messages that I have missed because of this "most desired feature".

I'm sure there are people out there who love this feature, but a LOT of us HATE it. Why NOT make an option to turn it off?

The most annoying part of Gmail!!! Why don't we have the option to turn it off?!!
It is so easy to lose emails and get confused with these 'conversations' that I'm just about to delete the whole account and go back to hotmail. ANNOYING!!!

G-mail "threading" is one of the worst stupid features of all time.

Add my vote for an option to turn it off!

I would completely forego the webmail interface and use only Thunderbird, except that at work I can't send email via TBird (blocked ports).

Funny, I like almost everything Google does, but this one completely blows. I've been using it for a few years now and I still hate it.

The other problem, if you use multiple mail clients: if you have a conversation archived with a label, and you get a new email in that conversation, it (the whole conversation) shows Inbox and MyLabel as its two labels, but this is misleading. For if you then delete the Inbox label and expect your new message to go into the MyLabel label (as is indicated right on the conversation), you will be sorely mistaken. Your message will be gone, only to be found in the All Messages label along with a trillion other old ones. Google claims this is not a bug....

I despise the threading option in Gmail. I use it because my other email client was blocked at work. But as a writer, I've got several different brainstorming emails going on at once and before i've finished typing two more brainstorming issues come in.

I also detest the way that it downloads MY answers into my Outlook client where I store emails for offline access and backup.

I'm thinking of going back to Yahoo just because of the threading issue. I'm surprised it's not a choice.

If you are using POP3 or SMTP with gmail, but ocasionally have to get online to check your email, it's almost impossible to find which part of the message is NEW because Google online assumes you haven't read any of it!

If this worked perfectly, it would still suck. But since it groups things inappropriately, it is especially bad. I had two responses to a craigslist post get threaded even though they were from seperate people, and missed a sale because of it. In another case, I was trying to read something safe and appropriate at work, and another (inappropriate) e-mail was threaded into it and it came up visible on the screen.

Now I can't even delete the inappropriate one without deleting the good one too? WTF?

I hate this part of gmail. I still maintain a yahoo mail account (12 years!) just because of this.

My positive feelings of Google have taken a bit of a knock from reading this. I find it amazing that the issue has still not been resoved about 3 years after the start of this thread.

I'm just trialling GMail with Google Apps as a possibility of replacing my current email provider. Pros are the resources and (I presume) reliability of Google. Less danger of being unable to access email when a server goes down.

But there seem to be a few "features" that I'm struggling to get used to and this auto threading aka "conversations" feature is one of them.

I was just testing a newsletter email using my GMail account. I sent three versions of the newsletter to my GMail account, each with minor differences to the appearance.

When I go to GMail all three versions are grouped into a "thread". But they are not a thread - this is not a conversation, it's just 3 emails with the same subject and very similar content. So the threading is just incorrect, for a start.

Secondly, GMail has decided that the later 2 versions of the email are quotations of the first email. They're not, again - they just contain some of the same content.

Specifically regarding the way in which GMail automatically marks text as quotation, just because it is also in the first email, seems to me ridiculous. There exists a perfectly good way of dealing with quotations already: 90% of email clients, if you reply, will automatically include the body of the previous email as a citation for you.

GMails auto quotation is a) inaccurate, and b) unecessary. Same thing goes for the threading.

I do actually use threading a lot with my usual email client, Thunderbird, where it is really useful in certain circumstances. But it is implemented far better there. It works; it can be switched off;...

Poor stuff from Google on this one!

This feature is supposedly coming soon check out this article:

http://www.businessinsider.com/google-gmail-change-2010-6

Sorry guys but I've been trying to "get used to it" for two years. Threading/conversations might be a useful feature if it worked correctly. However, when it ties totally unrelated e-mails together and important e-mails get lost seems to me threading is quite worthless. So I obtained the pop settings for gmail and tried that. Guess what? Still worthless. E-mails lost, duplicate e-mails downloaded from the server, just garbage. The only thing I kinda like about gmail is the ability to search e-mails for a particular word, but sometimes...even that doesn't work correctly.
Now that we learn that google streetview also collected information from neighborhood wifis, can we trust google with our data anyway?

I too find threading frustrating and often miss emails because they are buried in lenghty conversaitons/threads. I forward my mail to good old trusty hotmail ... until they can give me the option of switching it off.

Couldnt agree more on all the comments on threading emails. I hate it. I lose emails, looked effortless for specific ones in threads that contained loads of messages from one particular person, and another important option; I can't delete any individual messages (for instance with attachments or just to keep the ones that are important). Google is losing clients for sure...

I gave up trying to understand these "conversations" or "threads." When I pull these things up they are so confusing. I can't tell what is the most recent message and what is the old one. I also keep missing e-mails. I don't like the idea of having to scroll through 1,500 e-mails every day to see if somebody might have responded to some older e-mail. I kind of solved it by changing to a different free e-mail provider. I'd love it if they gave me an option to use the traditional method.

it's another "great" invention from Google, like the google page fade in. I absolutely hate it.

I hate the threading too, I can see two reasons why they have not changed.

1. Google support etc have to use gmail, and therefore all of our emails have lot of similar subjects and therefore the 1000's and 1000's emails are threaded and a load of them are associated with emails filed away years ago, the net result Google are only "seeing" a VERY much smaller number of complaints!!!!.

2. Arrogance maybe?

Options
we need to send emails with unique subject lines. or stop using them, neither very likely, hence why no response to customer requests. and remember so many of the users are blissfully unaware of the issue.

Still hoping!!

When will google learn that none of us like threading? I work in software and have grown up with the internet and email. Google email still confuses me and is frustrating. I prefer outlooks format, but I don't want to forward my personal emails to my work email. What should we do? Take a survey google!

I figured since most positive responses are missing because this seems to be a bottomless pit of people who have issues with it, that I would add a positive note.

I've used email almost since the inception of email and threading is the greatest thing I have ever run into when it comes to sorting.
I can understand people being in the odd situation of needing the same subject line for every email that comes to them (automated scripted emails, etc), however believing that you are in the majority just because you are doing it is irrational.

Understand that emails for most people are not like that, and when the same subject line is used for every email it's not a good thing. If a system is going to be used that has threading (like Gmail), and you are basing your company/secretarial system/etc on it, a great idea is to add some form of unique identifier for each message coming through. This is something that I have done for what seems like countless years, and I'm astonished it's not common practice by most people.. well.. most people here that is.

The world does not bend to you, you bend to the world in most cases. This goes for MS Exchange/Lotus Notes/etc. Having the option to use IMAP or POP3 adds the capability to mold it to your use. Take that opportunity by the horns, and make it yours!

Maybe Google should take notes from Microsoft who recently implemented the conversation view. Unlike Gmail, in Hotmail you can choose to turn off the conversation view, as I have done. I tried it and didn't like it. It's all about choice but I guess Google is slowly turning into Apple in that department.

It just doesn't work and it makes inbox-view worthless. You have to search for everything.

Problems:

1) It is good etiquette to make your email subjects informative. By doing so, you make the conversation-threading even more of a jumbled mess.

2) It commonly lumps emails of DIFFERENT conversations into one line item. Say, I send different emails to 3 friends, using the subject line. Gmail congeals them all into a single useless lump.

4) Since new emails do not show up as a line item, it is easy to miss them. I am forced to use Gmail for work, and I have missed several important emails because Gmail does not (like Yahoo or even Hotmail) put each new email on a separate line.

--------------------

The Gmail "conversation threading" feature is a classic example of a company wanting to force bad decisions on people. It is similar to the situation of the first iMac in which you paid extra to not have printer ports or removable storage (someone at Apple deemed these features to be immoral or something).

conversation threading is innovation from the people of hell

Six months ago I had to set up an e-mail account for a voluntary organisation I represent. Blissfully unaware of the ghastly "conversations" feature I opted for Googlemail but now I regret the decision bitterly. A computer user for 32 years, I still fail to understand the logic behind the counter-intuitive "sorting" which wastes valuable time and has caused me to miss important replies.

I am pleased to see from Mr Taylor's web site that there is actually a way to close my Google account. Despite the disruption this will cause, it will be worth it to be rid of this dreadful affliction.

I love the threading system between me and others or small groups of people. However, our business forced us to switch to gmail as an educational application and the threading aspect of conversations does not work when you send out mass emails to 50-60 clients. This is where the threading part becomes a headache. I am sure google will make it an option, but it really should be a no brainer...let the user decide if they want to use threading or not.

I have read more than 80% of the comments on this page, and here is my penny's worth.

About this Gmail threading, I would NOT say it is good or bad. To some who do not mind threading is good, to those others to whom threading is getting in their way of working it is bad.

I belong to those who do not like threading. Why?

Here is why. I have been using gmail since 2005 and now I have 6868 threads. Many of the threads have several dozens of emails grouped together. The problem is, when I speak with my business partners, they will refer to an email they sent let's say 6 months ago, but on my conversations list, the conversation date is only 1 month ago because the last email's date to have been grouped in that particular thread was from 1 month ago. This can be troublesome because I cannot tell that person to wait indefinitely until I can locate that very particular email.

Moreover, when I do expand the thread, it is not a big issue if the thread contains only a few short emails. However, if the thread is several dozens of emails long where each has a few to dozens of mechanical drawings, photos, and other attachments, it is not easy to get to the email you are looking for.

If I had an option to unthread, then it would be a matter of asking the date and time the email was sent by my correspondent, and voila.

I also wish to say to those who commented to "get used to it" or to "use pop clients" or to "switch to yahoo" or anything similar to these that I expect the gmail service to provide what I want instead of I having to get used to it, especially when I am a paying user of Gmail.

Having said all the above, my conclusion is that I really would appreciate if Google listened to the complaints from the users and provide a solution (which I do not believe should be really complicated because if Google can group, then Google should be able to ungroup since I am sure that on the server emails are not physically grouped). In this way, Gmail should truly become THE email service for everyone.

For the love of god make this optional!

Dave Taylor hasn't answered the question about disabling conversations in Gmail, but he sure has answered the following question for himself:

How to make money:

1. set up a blog like web site with ads (for ex: Google ads) and allowing (semi-)anonymous posting

2. find an issue that is annoying a lot of people, has not been discussed a lot yet, has no current solution, and is unlikely to get one anytime soon (for ex: Google service feature limitations. Good alternatives are Apple product and service issues. Both companies are extremely stubborn - and, mostly, successful - in having a pure top-bottom way of designing things and totally ignoring user feedback)

3. post a page pretending to answer the issue, at least in the title of the post. Actual content may be "get used to it cause it is better this way" (Google or Apple), "use M$hit if you don't like it" (Apple only I guess).

4. since the issue is little discussed, your page will eventually show up in search engines (for ex: Google) with "adequate" ranking

5. since you allowed for easy commenting, it will easily serve as a repository for (mostly legitimate) rants

6. virtuous circle: more rants better ranking more traffic more ad money

7. PROFIT!

I especially love how Google plays a part in basically everything here (issue, search engine, ads).

Well done Dave.

When are we going to get a fix to this problem? Does someone at google even hear us?
I get hundreds of emails a day working back and forth with china on tons of products. It is annoying to not be able to just find the last email received. Emails hide in a thread. I just need the option to use it or not use it. Google, you were on the right track with technology, why allow microsoft outlook to fix your issues for you?

@Rachel at September 13, 2010 11:05 PM
Exactly, this mandatory 'feature' is pointless. I receive a lot of mail too and I have missed very important e-mails. I flag important mail threads but that is not enough.

I don't understand why software developers keep on discarding classic functionality completely with no way to revert or disable new functionality. You see this everywhere. For years you're doing thing one way, it doesn't even bother you, you are used to things. Then all the sudden you're forced to do things differently. For no other reason than 'your convenience'.

Software developers, changing or discarding basic classic functionality is *not* convenient. It's never convenient. It's bugging.

It reminds me on how Google decided that near matches instead of exact matches is 'convenient' while I picked Google as my primary search engine years ago just because of the exact matches. I hated the stupid near matches other search engines produced. Useless. But what should I be thinking now, Google? "Wow, you have found me 200,000,000 hits instead of 100 and now you show me your suggestions first, just like all the other search engines, thank you!" ? I don't think so.

What happened to giving the end user a choice? This is poor design.

As of yesterday, google is beginning to allow you disable threading!!! Woohoo!!! They call it "conversation view" and it will soon be in your settings as an on/off option (if it isn't there already!).

Darn. I stumbled here doing a search on how to disable this dumb threaded conversation feature in Gmail.

It's HORRIBLE!

How depressing... I just read through this whole post to see if I could find a solution to turning off the 'conversation' threading.

Different people like to organize things in different ways.

I personally cannot stand the forced grouping - I don't even like how newer versions of windows automatically group the windows within the task bar, so - I TURN THE FEATURE OFF and problem solved.

Why can google not give users the option to turn this feature off???!!!

I have not gone into gmail q&a etc to look further into this yet, but if I cannot find a solution I think that I will be closing up my account and sadly moving on.

I say sadly because I like having a gmail account, the potential for it to be a great provider is there, they just need to give users the freedom to choose how they want to organize.

Well, after I posted my message I saw the new post from Carlos G. Great news!! I checked my inbox setting and it does not seem to be there yet but I will be keeping a close watch, perfect timing! Thanks for the wonderful update Carlos!!

I read Carlos G comments and checked the Settings and it's there! I turned it off!!!

Wooooo Hoooooo!!!

Carlos is right! You can indeed turn off message threading / conversation view in Google Mail, after years of complaints! I've also written up a tutorial to ensure you know how to change it too:

http://www.askdavetaylor.com/disable_turn_off_message_threading_conversation_view_google_gmail.html

Thanks again, Carlos, for keeping us up-to-date!

Excellent news, many thanks to Carlos and Dave. I've made the change and it seems to work. I deal with many e-mails about one subject, so now I can choose which to keep and which to delete much more easily and shouldn't need to worry about wording subject lines deliberately to defeat the Conversations feature.

I am still struggling in the fact I like to "move" a sent message into a folder to help keep things organized. You can't... sent mail can be "labeled" but not moved (unless you want it in the inbox.) So, it's better - but not equivalent to other web based mail like Yahoo or Outlook. If I am wrong and you can, please let me know...

Let me put my 2p in and say I hate it too and feel rather annoyed at 'Dave's' lame comment. As with others, I came here looking for a fix to a problem not a sales speech to convert me because I'm an influencable, mindless drone. Is he getting kick backs from Google?

No kickbacks, just a difference in opinion...

To Google -- Thank you, thank you, thank you for the ability to turn off Conversation View through Settings. Now I can reply while attaching only a subset of a thread, and I can send someone a thread without adding them to the original copy. Dave, I am dousing my torch and putting away my pitchfork (until next time). Kudos to all the spirited opponents of involuntary threading who spoke up over a three-year period.

To Google and Author:

If I wanted a "newsthread" mailing system then why doesn't everyone just get a cheap newsfeed accounts, and that way all their emails will be scrunched into one gigantic THREAD !?
In other words, this method is primarily used by "Newsreader" software. Hence,....

This is condescending on Google's part to "force" anyone into a mailing style that Google thinks is the best.

And the fact that Google DOESN"T allow anyone to change their mail settings to "non-threaded" is simply wrong.
Be different Google, but don't force your methods on all others.

It is OBVIOUSLY not the best for all people, ie. businesss, .....
Is there no way we can simply change this to "non-threaded" ???

In the meantime, it'll be back to "live.ca" or "hotmail.ca" for this one.
Atleast those "Inbox's" work, like a mail Inbox should
:)

Rick, check it out: you can turn off conversation threading in Gmail now, if you really want to:

http://www.askdavetaylor.com/disable_turn_off_message_threading_conversation_view_google_gmail.html

:-)

@Richard Allen at October 9, 2010 5:51 AM

Thx ! for the tip:

"...Thank you, thank you, thank you for the ability to turn off Conversation View through Settings..."

mmm, this does look promising.

@Dave Taylor
re: Inbox: non-threaded conversation mail
"... check it out: you can turn off conversation threading in Gmail now, if you really want to:

http://www.askdavetaylor.com/disable_turn_off_message_threading_conversation_view_google_gmail.html ..."

Thanks Dave, for the above link, and others here, and ya, this is lookin better already in gmail.
:)

And thx again Dave for the quick response here, wow,
I could only wish our "ISP"'s were that fast with their "paid-for" support,
;)

YEEAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! (Turned it off).

Hello All,

I finally get rid of this Madness... Yahoooooooooo... follow the following steps to stop threading.

1. Go to Setting.
2. Click on Conversation view off option.
3. Save setting..

Enjoy
The old Gmail Enviroment.....

also very much dislike the "conversations" feature. It feels sloppy and is confusing.

Thank you! I was reading all these posts and was so disillusioned that I would be unable to turn off the threads. Until I scrolled down to the post from Aftab Ahmed khan. Thank you to whoever figured it out, it is now so much easier!

OMG, it's over!

I tried. I really tried. Now that this "feature" is finally an OPTION I can move to Gmail from Hotmail.

I came to this page with knowledge of the change but was still comforted by all the shared pain here (LOL) that I never knew existed.

I am still reasonably BEWILDERED that the 'conversation view' adherents apparently never encounter what the rest of us see as critical failures.

But reading this today gave me closure.

Thanks to Dave Taylor. Your opening comments were annoying but you seem like a reasonable dude when all is said and done :)

Glory Glory Hallelujah

If you want to remove the damn ads, try this google chrome extension, its called "better gmail", u can down load from here:

https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/mgdnblnolcinnndenjnollpiplgkbjcn?hl=en

"Conversations" is some nerd's brilliant logic as to how all us peasants should work.

*NERD FAIL*

I hope the bork who invented this is now selling ice creams in Norway.

I love you AFTAB AHMED KHAN !!! Thank you so much for solving this threading irritation. I am just wondering however.....why didnt the guys at gmail tell us how to do it ? Were they laughing at us all this time ? (comments on this site started in Aug 2006 !) If so, its pure arrogance.

I still prefer conversation view for most short exchanges but when I could not find an e-mail that I knew I had received today, I temporarily turned off the conversation view and was able to find it in seconds. It had been buried in a thread of 22 exchanges that started weeks ago.

I wish there is a way to turn the "conversation thread" off! I do not know why google has set it in such a way and give me a miserable life!

Eliz, as I mention earlier in the comments, you can now turn off conversation threading in Gmail:

http://www.askdavetaylor.com/disable_turn_off_message_threading_conversation_view_google_gmail.html

:-)

Threading is not for everyone and I wish I could turn it off. I can appreciate that there are a lot of users that like the feature too bad these same people cannot appreciate that there are some of us that find it to be a pain in the ass.

Intelligence grows when one is able to see another opinion to have value even when it is not agreed with.

Not only treading (conversation) feature is bad, but there are other design faults.
1. You cannot sort by the field in the inbox.
2. Labels are bad substitute to folders, since they do not allow creating subfolders, which make a list of folders (labels) extremely wide and difficult to manage.
3. With conversation the worst part is that you cannot delete separate messages from the conversation, only the whole group.

I used gmail for a long time....i understand gmail threading and got used to it, and then i started making a series of orders....and i got absolutely crazy, loosing track of time and what is replacing old statements. So, now i am using gmail from an IMAP client, the service is good but the threading is an option that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't...If google doesn't allow to disable it, it's a stupid thing - full stop.

Dude from the last comment - You can turn it off in: Settings - Conversation View.
So simple!

"I don't believe that there's any way to turn this feature off, but since it's such an integral part of Gmail and so darn useful, I suggest instead that you might spend a few weeks trying to get used to it"

I'm one of the millions of people that thinks this 'feature' is stupid, unhelpful, annoying, and anything but "darn useful". If Google can't implement 'features' without fundamentally breaking the way e-mail works, they're worse than useless - they're creating a problem that didn't previously exist.

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=5900

"If you'd like, you can change this setting so that replies aren't threaded into conversations, but appear as individual messages in your inbox. To do so, go to the General tab of your Gmail Settings, and select the radio button next to 'Conversation view off'."

You can Turn off Gmail’s conversation view, so that your conversation won't group together anymore

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/turn-off-gmails-conversation-view.html

Some like it, others don't, but that's not the point. If you're not going to answer the question, then don't put up a web page about it: you're wasting everyone's time.

The link posted on Feb 17 answers the question.

You can easily turn off Conversations (or thread) by going to Settings->Conversation View Off.

I find it confusing as well. Yahoo, hotmail, and outlook emails are user friendly. I ask to the responsible manager to make the conversation feature an option, so that everyone will be happy. Please! Stop annoying customers.

I have a hard time dealing with threading because I have a disability and I need to have each email separated in order to be organized. I get frustrated and stressed sorting through pages of emails in order to find the one I want. I confuses me and there should be an option to disable this as not everyone is able to work this way. This is a world of diversity and email accounts should be set up this way so all have the same advantages as others. To set up an email account just one way, means that only those who's brains are ok with sorting through pages an pages of emails to find the one they need and those who have a problem with sorting through pages of emails are at a disadvantage. Switching to another email system is not an option for me as I am too invested in the two that I had. I didn't realize it threaded it until it was too late.

Thanks

i hate the stupid conversation threading

google is such a stupid company, it takes years and they still couldn't fix this threading bug

After I forwarded an email from my wife to a few friends of mine; I sent a personal note to my wife, by "ACCIDENTLY" hitting the "REPLY" button to the thread which i sent to my friends (instead to the original thread from my wife). Now what it did is strange: A reply button should send an email to the "SENDER (i.e me in this case)" not the "RECIEPIENT"..it send the note to my friends, which was a personal note intended for my wife. So disappointed in you GMAIL!!

I found a solution to the problem. I have been struggling with this for a while, it is extremely confusing and dangerous (especially when sending quotes to customers connected to a thread with private conversations in the background).
Anyway:
click: settings (it is the gear depiction in upper right hand corner
in the general settings tab: scroll to conversation view and turn it off
it fixes the group email issue

hopefully this works for standard gmail, as I only tried it on a work account

good luck

Just looked up this chain.
Sarah and boomboom both posted the same exact solution.
I apologize for my redundance and/or taking any credit.

It may provide an easy method for Google to organize customer messages for tracking purposes, but it's possible that consumers neither need, nor want such chain-thread-mail tracking, and may find it intrusive and threatening.

Why does Google feel a need to organize everyone's thoughts by imposing its own system of organization on everyone? That isn't Google's job. There needs to be a method to turn it off, or on, when desired. Perhaps it works best for businesses when threads are required for determining liability problems. But, for friends, acquaintances, and relatives, it's annoying.

Here are the instructions to turn it off.

Conversations
Share Comment

If you'd like, you can change this setting so that replies aren't threaded into conversations, but appear as individual messages in your inbox. To do so, go to the General tab of your Gmail Settings, and select the radio button next to 'Conversation view off'.

Thanks sooo much Eric. It works! I'm rid of those darned conversations. For anyone else who wants to try - go to your mail box, go to options, settings, general tab, and select the option to turn off conversations. BIG THANK YOU TO ERIC

Thank you so much to all the people who posted the solution for this. I DESPISE this feature in Gmail but had no idea I could turn it off. I have now turned off the "conversations" feature and my Gmail is much more user-friendly.

Why did it take so long for everyone to figure this out, Why is it cleverly hidden in the "gear icon?"
Why do I have to search for everyday things like "forward" and "reply"? It should be designed for the imbecile, the novice, not for elitist cryptologists.

Google's services have several features that are ruining my internetting.

The predictive search thing. UGH. Took a while to be able to disable it.

And I miss SO MANY notifications because it groups emails together. It's all well and good saying it's a revolutionary feature that makes things easier, but it REALLY screws with notification systems.

MAKE IT OPTIONAL! MAKE IT OPTIONAL! MAKE IT OPTIONAL! MAKE IT OPTIONAL! MAKE IT OPTIONAL! MAKE IT OPTIONAL!

THANKS THANKS So much to the solution providers ... I was able to turn off threading ... just go to mail settings, then the 6th item right after Browser settings, is conversation settings ... THIS SHOULD BE OFF!

Thanks again ... I like many hate hate conversations or threading ...

Thank you Thank you for instructions on how to disable the "conversations" app.

It has complicated my use of gmail to a big degree.

I've just come from disabling the 'conversations' app.

All the emails are showing by sender, date, and first line of "each" message. Now I can get back to quickly finding the needed email.

As my use is not a social use but rather business use the 'conversations' mode was maddening and certainly not working for me.

Thank you again for showing us how to disable the conversation mode.

Options. We have options. Thank you!

There is a setting to turn conversations on or off. I have it OFF and it still groups them in Thunderbird, it is completely aggravating and I have missed so many emails and had to figure out how to reply to ONE since they are all grouped..

People, the discussion grouping in Gmail happens only for emails that have the same TITLE. It does not apply necessarily to the same people, so if you change subject to the email you are starting a new discussion. It is that easy. When you are talking about Chick Peas title your email that way and all messages will be in the Chick Peas conversation, change title and BAM! new discussion. :)

Also, your inbox always shows how many messages are in each thread/discussion, how many new messages are there and who sent them.

If you don't like Gmail use something else... right?

What i can see is that gmail tends to mess a few things up when you use your account both on android and your home computer, but that's a whole different matter.

Au revoir!