System and method for displaying and/or acting upon email conversations across folders. In one embodiment, email messages are grouped into conversations regardless of the folders in which the messages reside. Such conversations can span multiple folders. In one embodiment, all or some messages from a conversation are displayed, along with the folder associated with each message. In one embodiment, specified actions can be taken upon all messages in a conversation regardless of the folders in which the messages reside. In one embodiment, it can be specified that an action should apply (or not apply) only to messages in select folders, or that the action should apply only to messages matching a search query. Such specifications may be a system-level indication (which may be set by the system developer or administrator) or it may be a user indication (either a default user setting or an explicit user comment).