Replies, forwards & threads

Messages in the same conversation are grouped into a thread so the back-and-forth stays together, with the most recent message open and earlier ones collapsed.

How a conversation is built

A thread follows the chain of replies. Each message records which message it answers, and NevTan Mail walks that chain back to the one that started it:

• The subject line plays no part. Grouping is done on the reply chain alone, which has two consequences people usually expect the other way round.
• Changing the subject does not split the thread. Rename a reply and it stays with the conversation it answers, because it is still a reply to that message.
• Two separate messages sharing a subject do not merge. Three unrelated messages all titled Invoice stay three conversations, which is why a common subject never drags strangers into the same thread.
• The newest message is open, with earlier ones collapsed above it. Choose any of them to expand it.
• Message content is cleaned before it is shown, and links open in a new tab, so a message cannot interfere with the page around it.

Reply, reply all & forward

Each message in a thread carries its own actions, not just the newest:

• Reply — answer the person who sent that message.
• Reply all — answer the sender and everyone else who was on it.
• Forward — pass the message on to somebody new. The original attachments come with it, and you can drop any you would rather not send on.
• Delete this message — remove that one message. The rest of the conversation stays where it is.

Reply is on the message itself; reply all and forward sit in its More menu. Whichever you choose opens at the foot of the thread with the full compose toolbar — formatting, attachments, inline images and the rest, exactly as a new message has. See Composing email.

Who gets your reply

Reply all is where mail goes wrong most often, so it is worth knowing exactly what it fills in before you send:

• Reply goes to one person — whoever sent the message you are answering, and nobody else.
• Reply all keeps the shape of the original. The sender and everyone who was in To go into To; anyone who was in Cc stays in Cc.
• You are never added to your own reply. Your mailbox address is filtered out, and so is every alias you can send from — so a message addressed to an alias of yours does not come back round to you.
• Nobody appears twice. Anyone already in To is dropped from Cc rather than listed in both.
• Blind copies are not carried over. A Bcc recipient is invisible to everyone but the sender, so there is nothing for reply all to pick up — if you were Bcc'd, replying to all does not reveal that to the other recipients.

The quoted conversation

• Your reply carries the message you are answering, introduced with the date and the sender, the way every mail client does it — so the person reading has the context without opening anything else.
• It is collapsed out of your way while you write. The ••• control under the reply expands it, which is the way to check exactly what is going out before you send.
• Your signature can sit above or below the quoted part. Above keeps your reply and your sign-off together at the top; below puts it at the very end.
• A forward carries the whole original, its own quoted history included, so the person you send it to sees the conversation as you did.

Unfinished replies

• An unfinished reply saves itself. Start one, get pulled away, and it is kept without you doing anything.
• The thread shows a Draft badge, so you can tell at a glance which conversations you have left half-answered.
• It also appears in Drafts alongside your other unsent messages — see Drafts & scheduled email.
• Opening the thread again picks it up where you stopped, with the recipients and attachments as you left them.