I my inbox, when I list emails in sender ('From') order, how can I then get the messages for each sender to be listed in date order?

Thunderbird doesn't support multiple sorting criteria, so we need to go about this another way. Initially, I'd use the QuickFilter bar to limit the display to the sender(s) I wanted to work with, and then you could sort on Date. You may want to try both Threaded and Unthreaded views, as many users have issues with new messages being "hidden" at the bottom of a collapsed thread. Note there is also a QuickFilter option for unread messages. If you find the QuickFilter useful, you may like the enhancements offered by this add-on: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/gmailui/ It lets you better specify messages from multiple senders, or a mix of date, subject and sender. If this is recurrent activity, then it may be useful to set up Saved Search folders for the particular categories (such as the senders) and then you can of course sort these on date. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/using-saved-searches