Mac mail grouping conversations

I find it impossible to easily find individual email messages due to the default "organize by conversation". I would prefer finding the message by date and responding to that individual message rather than opening each conversation to try to find the message that is of interest. I have unchecked "organize by conversation" in Mail settings and also when in the app. But nothing has separated these messages in any conversation. Is it possible to separate after the fact, or does this option only pertain to future messages and conversations? My

oS in Sequoia 15.1 and both main computers have M3 chips.