How can I set the "default" address in Thunderbird for someone who has two email addresses?

Question

There are two addresses in Thunderbird's address book for someone I email fairly frequently. Unfortunately, the one which comes up first is the less preferable address to use. Is there a way for me to tell Thunderbird that I want to use the other address as the default for this person?

To make this clearer: Let's say this person is my boss. Thus I have a work address for them, and want to use it most of the time. However, I also have a personal address for them and don't want to delete it for times when they are away from the office and I need to send them email. Unfortunately, Thunderbird currently offers their personal address as the first choice when I type their name, and I sometimes forget to switch to their work address. I'd like to have Thunderbird offer their work address as the first choice, so that I'm less likely to make that mistake.

Answer 1

That pop-up address selection list is part of auto-complete. According to MozillaZine:

Auto complete uses both the main and additional email address in a contact. It alphabetically sorts entries in the pop-up. However, if you have sent a message to a contact three or more times auto-complete will sort the entries alphabetically, but it will list the main address before the additional email address for that contact.

So one solution is to make the preferred address the main one. I've tested this on my own system, and that works.

You can also store separate contacts for a person, and manipulate the names to control the sequence. The first address in the pop-up list is pre-populated in the address window, and it is based on the characters you have already entered. So, when you type the first letter, the pop-up list will contain a sorted list of names starting with that letter. If your boss's name is not the first name in the list, a different name will be pre-populated until you enter enough characters.

You can manipulate the alphabetical presentation sequence somewhat by how you store the name entries (both the one you want and others that may precede it in the list). For example, Robert vs. Bob, or you can prefix the name with the company name or a descriptor, like Home or Work, or even add a number (Bob Smith2).

MozillaZine does list an addin, MoreFunctionsForAddressBook, that claims to include the ability to change the address presentation order. I haven't used it and don't know whether it has been maintained and is compatible with recent releases of Thunderbird. Their certificate expired a few months ago and I had to override Firefox's security warning to view their website. This addin isn't currently listed in the available addins list from within Thunderbird, and wasn't found when I searched the addin list by name, so that's not promising (but you can download it directly from the publisher at the bottom of the linked page).