The interface at a glance

Last updated October 2026

The main window has three columns: the sidebar on the left, the message list in the middle, and the reading pane on the right (or the dashboard, as long as no email is open). You can drag the borders between the columns with the mouse.

The sidebar

From top to bottom:

Grouped Mailboxes combine folders of the same kind across all accounts: All Inboxes, All Sent, All Archives, All Junk, All Drafts and All Trash. On top of that come views by property rather than by folder: All Snoozed, Follow-Ups (as soon as there are any) and With Notes. With several accounts, “All Inboxes” is the natural home: one list, everything in it.

Outbox / Pending Actions only appears while something is waiting, such as an email with delayed sending or an action that has not reached the server yet because you were offline.

Smart Folders fill themselves based on conditions such as sender, tags or flag color. More under Creating smart folders.

Saved Searches appears as soon as you have saved a search, see How search works.

Mailboxes lists each account with its real folders, exactly as they exist on the server.

Flagged shows all flagged emails plus one entry per flag color, and Tags does the same for your tags.

The order of the sections is fixed. Within their section, you sort accounts, folders, smart folders and saved searches by dragging. Which grouped mailboxes appear, whether Flagged, Tags and Smart Folders are shown and which counters you see is set under Settings → Mailboxes → Sidebar Listing.

The « button at the top right of the sidebar collapses it, the » button at the left window edge brings it back. In narrow windows the sidebar sits on top of the list and opens via the button at the top left.

The message list

Above the list sit the tabs All, Read, Unread and Has attachments. Which of them appear is set under Settings → Mails → General at Filter Tabs. Below them you see how many emails are unread, next to that Mark all as read, and on the right the sort order: Newest first (default), Oldest first, Largest first or Smallest first.

Each row shows sender and date, below that tags, subject, flag and the number of messages in the conversation, and below that the first lines of the message. Small symbols show whether you replied or forwarded, whether a note is attached or the email is pinned to the top. In combined views such as All Inboxes or a smart folder, the row also shows the folder. Hover over a row and buttons for junk and trash appear. What the rows show is set under Appearance.

Selecting multiple emails: Hold Cmd (Windows and Linux: Ctrl) and click to add single emails, hold Shift to select a whole range. By keyboard, use X. As soon as more than one email is selected, a bar appears at the bottom with the count and the buttons Mark as read, Mark as unread, Archive, Delete and Clear selection. To move emails, drag them onto a folder or use the context menu.

Reading pane and dashboard

With no email open, the right column shows the dashboard. By default it shows counters for Unread, Flagged, Snoozed, Follow-Ups and Drafts, quick links, your flags, tags and latest notes, upcoming snoozed emails and your smart folders. Use Edit at the top of the dashboard to rearrange the tiles, more under Setting up the dashboard.

Open an email and it appears in the same place as a conversation: all messages of the same thread stack beneath each other, the oldest at the top, and all of them expanded. Both can be changed under Appearance, where you can also move the reading pane below the list or hide it. A double-click on an email opens the conversation in its own window.

The header bar

On the left sit the Compose button, Do not disturb, the sync button and the search field. On the right follow Statistics (Pro), Contacts, Attachments, Help and Support and Settings. Statistics, Contacts and Attachments take the place of your emails, a second click takes you back. Settings opens in its own window. When you are offline, the header bar also tells you so.

Press / to jump into the search, as long as you are not typing in an input field (with the default shortcut layout). More under How search works.

By keyboard

Almost everything works without the mouse. Press ? to bring up the shortcut overview. The complete list of every binding lives under Keyboard shortcuts, including how to adopt the layouts of Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird, Superhuman or Spark.