Read and send mail

Open Inbox under Mail in the selected Personal or team context. It opens the first mailbox you can use. With more than one mailbox, choose another from the list at the top of the folders. A Personal mailbox is its owner's alone. A team mailbox opens for every member of the team unless it is private to one member; see Add mailboxes, aliases and a catch-all. Until there is a mailbox, Inbox shows the next setup step: adding a domain, connecting it, or adding a mailbox. See Connect your own domain to Mail.

Inbox shows three columns: the folders, the messages in the chosen folder, and the open message. Every mailbox has Inbox, Starred, Snoozed, Drafts, Scheduled, Sent, Archive, Spam and Trash, followed by any folders made in it. Inbox, Spam and the folders made in the mailbox show how many messages are unread, and Drafts and Scheduled how many messages are in them. On a narrower window the folders are above the messages; on a phone, the list and the open message take turns, and the folder name above a message returns to the list.

Times in Mail are in the time zone in your Account settings.

Mail is read and sent in Inbox and in the Magpie app. Other mail apps, such as Outlook or Apple Mail, cannot connect to a Magpie mailbox: there is no IMAP or SMTP access.

Find messages

Search looks in the chosen folder of the selected mailbox: the sender's name and address, the recipients, the subject and the text. Show and sort, the button beside the search box, chooses which messages show (All messages, Unread or With attachments) and their order (Newest first, Oldest first, Unread first, Sender, Subject or Largest first). While a choice other than all messages, newest first applies, it is named under the folder's name, with Clear to go back.

A long folder is split into pages: Next and Previous under the list move between them, and the line beside them says which messages are shown. While Inbox is open, new mail appears in the list without reloading, and a message says how many arrived. Checks slow down while you are not using the page and stop while the tab is hidden; the refresh button next to the search box checks immediately.

Unread messages are shown in bold, and a message without text shows (No text). Select the star beside a message to star it or remove its star.

Read a message

Open a message to read it. Images attached to a message are shown in it. Images that load from other sites are hidden until you choose to show them, because loading them lets the sender see that the message was opened, and when. Choose Show images to show them in that message, or Always show images from the sender to show them in every message from that address. The choice is yours alone; other members of a shared mailbox decide for themselves. Stop showing them hides that sender's images again.

Other attachments download as files. A PDF attachment also has Open in PDF Editor; see PDF Editor.

The buttons above a message reply, reply all, forward, archive, move to Trash, move to another folder, snooze, star, and mark it unread. Reply and reply all are offered on messages you received. Spam moves a message from Inbox to Spam. In Archive, Snoozed and Spam, a button moves the message back to Inbox. In Trash, restore a message or delete it permanently with its attachments.

Reply all addresses the sender and everyone else the message was sent to, and keeps its Cc addresses as Cc. The mailbox's own addresses are left out. A reply quotes the message under a line with its date and time in your time zone. A reply or forward opens with the cursor above the quoted message.

When a message is part of a conversation, the other messages in it are listed under the message, oldest first, from any folder except Trash and Spam. Select one to open it.

More above the message has:

• Add the sender to Contacts in the selected Personal or team context, when they are not there yet and you can edit the team's records. When they are, Open them in Contacts instead; In Contacts beside the sender opens them too.
• View original and headers, which opens a page with the message's details, its headers as they arrived, and the whole message as text. Nothing in it is shown as a web page. Only the first 512 KB is shown.
• Download as .eml, which saves the original to open in a mail app.

Messages received or sent before Magpie began keeping originals have none; for those, View original shows only the details Magpie stored. The original of a sent message does not list its Bcc addresses, so the other recipients could not see them.

Folders

Choose New folder under the folders to add one. Give it a name and choose Inside to put it inside another folder. The new folder opens once it is added. Folders belong to the mailbox, so everyone who can open a shared mailbox sees them.

In a folder you made, select its name at the top of the list to rename it. More beside the name has New folder inside, Move folder, which puts it and the folders inside it inside another folder or at the top level, and Delete folder. Deleting a folder deletes the folders inside it and moves their messages to Trash, where you can restore them until Trash is emptied.

To move a message, choose Move to above it and pick a folder, or drag it from the list onto a folder. To change several messages together, tick them: drag one of them onto a folder, or choose an action above the list, such as Mark read or a folder under Move to, and select Apply. A draft stays in Drafts until it is sent or moved to Trash.

Snooze

Choose Snooze above a message to move it to Snoozed until Later today, Tomorrow, This weekend or Next week. Each choice shows the day and time it stands for, in your time zone. Later today is not offered late in the day, and This weekend is not offered from Friday to Sunday. Choose a date and time… sets any time within the next year.

At that time the message goes back to Inbox, unread, at the top of the list. Moving a snoozed message to another folder ends its snooze. Drafts, scheduled messages and messages in Trash or Spam cannot be snoozed.

Spam and Trash

Mail does not sort spam: every message arrives in Inbox. Choose Spam above a message to move it to Spam.

Messages stay in Trash and Spam until you delete them. Empty Trash and Empty Spam at the top of each delete every message in it permanently, with its attachments and original, after you confirm. To delete only some, tick them and choose Delete permanently. Deleted messages cannot be restored.

Stars, read status, folder moves and snoozes change immediately. If saving fails, the previous state is restored and an error appears.

Write a message

Choose New message to write from the selected mailbox or an alias that delivers to it. The message is written where an open message is shown: the subject at the top, then the addresses, then the message. When the mailbox has more than one address, choose which one it is sent from on the From line. Choose Cc or Bcc beside the To line to add those lines. Start entering a name or email address to choose a matching Contact in the selected team. Messages are written as plain text, without formatting or a saved signature, and can hold images.

To put an image in a message, drag it from your computer onto the message: it goes where you drop it. Paste a screenshot or a copied image to put it in at the cursor. Insert images, the button beside the paperclip, puts images from Your images in at the cursor; it can also upload them. An image added any of these ways is saved in Your images too. While you write, a large image is shown smaller; it is sent at its full size. To take an image out, select it and delete it.

Attach files with the paperclip, or drop them on the message. Attachments and images can be up to 10 MB in total. Drafts save as you write, including images and attachments, and remain available if sending fails. Closing the message keeps its draft in Drafts; Discard moves the draft to Trash.

After sending, Mail returns to the folder you were in, with the message you replied to or forwarded still open. The sent message is in Sent. Messages appear in Sent after the mail service accepts them; acceptance means the message was queued for delivery, not that the recipient received it.

Send later

To send a message at a later time, choose Send later beside Send, then Tomorrow morning, Tomorrow afternoon or Monday morning. Each choice shows the day and time it stands for, in your time zone. Monday morning is not offered on Sunday, when tomorrow morning is Monday. Choose a date and time… sets any time within the next year.

The message is saved and checked as Send checks it, then waits in Scheduled. At its time Magpie sends it from the address on its From line, and it moves to Sent. You do not need to be signed in.

Open a message in Scheduled to see when it will be sent. Unschedule puts it back in Drafts and opens it to change. The clock above it changes the time. Move to Trash stops it being sent. A scheduled message cannot be moved to another folder or snoozed.

If a message cannot be sent at its time, for example because the mailbox was suspended or its From address was removed, it goes back to Drafts and the draft says why. A message from Magpie in Inbox says so too. Send it from Drafts, or choose another time. A scheduled message is sent as the member who chose its time: if they can no longer use Mail in the team, it is not sent.

Storage and sending limits

Each mailbox has 5 GB of storage. The bar under the folders shows how much is used: each message counts its size as received or sent. When a mailbox is full, new mail for it is not delivered; Magpie keeps the message and tries again later. Deleting messages permanently (Empty Trash and Empty Spam) makes room.

A message can go to up to 25 recipients in To, Cc and Bcc together, and each mailbox can send up to 100 messages an hour. Mail says so when a message goes over either limit. Mail also refuses an incoming message over 12 MB.

Unread mail on Dashboard and in the account menu

Unread mail on Dashboard lists each mailbox with unread mail in its Inbox, in Personal and in every team where you can use Mail, with the number unread, the most recent mail first. Select one to open it in its team, whichever team is selected.

The account menu lists the same mailboxes under Unread messages, and a red dot shows on your avatar while one of them has unread mail; on a phone the dot is on the menu button. When many mailboxes have unread mail, the menu names the most recent and counts the rest in Unread mail in other mailboxes, which opens Dashboard. Both update while a page is open.

To keep unread mail out of the account menu, open Account settings and switch off Unread mail in the account menu. To leave it off Dashboard, switch off Unread mail on Dashboard in the same place. The two switches are separate.

In the Magpie app

Mail in the app lists the mailboxes you can open in the selected Personal or team context, each with Inbox, Starred, Drafts, Sent, Archive, Spam and Trash and the same counts as Inbox. Snoozed, Scheduled and the folders made in a mailbox are not in the app; a message in one of them shows in Starred when it is starred. Send later is on the website only. Open a folder to see its messages, newest first; Load more shows older ones. Search from the header looks in that folder. Pull down to check for new mail; the app also checks when you return to a folder.

A message in the app shows its text without formatting. Images that load from other sites are never shown, and the message says how many were left out. Tap a web address to open it, or an email address link to write to it. Tap an attachment to open the share sheet with it, where you can open it in another app, save it or send it. Opening a message marks it read.

Reply is at the top of a message. The action menu has Reply all, Forward, Star or Remove star, Mark unread, and the same moves as Inbox: Archive, Move to Spam from Inbox, Move to Inbox from Archive and Spam, Move to Trash, and in Trash Restore to Inbox and Delete permanently. Press and hold a message in a folder for the same changes, or swipe it to move it to Trash; in Trash, swiping deletes it permanently after you confirm.

Choose New message in a folder to write from that mailbox, or open a draft in Drafts to continue it. A draft with images, written on the website, shows each image's name in its text and the images with its attachments; saved from the app, the images are sent as attachments. Choose the From address when the mailbox has more than one. Start entering a name or email address in To, Cc or Bcc to choose a matching Contact in the selected team. Attach photos and Attach files add photos from your library or files from your device, up to 10 MB in total; they upload when the draft is saved or the message is sent. Save draft and Discard are in the action menu. Leaving a message with unsaved changes asks whether to save it as a draft.

Send saves the draft, then sends it, and shows Sending… until the mail service answers. Sending the same message again does not send a second copy. If sending fails, the draft stays in Drafts so you can try again.

If a mailbox cannot send, a team admin can check on Addresses whether it is suspended, and on the domain's page whether the domain is still verified. For repeated delivery problems, Contact support.