There is. Mozilla Thunderbird can group and collapse messages according to your sort order. If you are sorting by date, you'll have a group for emails received today, for mail received yesterday, for last week's messages, and so on. It's also easy to minimize the impact of all old mail.
Group Messages in Mozilla Thunderbird
To group messages in Mozilla Thunderbird:
- Press G.
- Alternatively, select View | Sort by | Grouped By Sort from the menu.
- Unfortunately, not all sort order support grouping. If you cannot group your messages according to the current sort order, the menu item will be grayed out.
To return your folder to an un-grouped state, instead of pressing G again, select View | Sort by | Unthreaded from the menu.

