Organising mail

This page covers every way to put mail away in Nixt Mail. Nothing here deletes mail for good: archiving, moving to the trash and moving to a folder can all be undone, and the trash is emptied by your mail provider, not by Nixt Mail.

Most actions can be reached five ways — the toolbar above the open message, a single key, the Message menu, the menu you get by right-clicking a row, and, on a narrow window, a swipe. The tables below list them all.

The row menu

Right-click any row in the message list — or press and hold on a touch screen — to act on it without opening it:

Archive

Archiving takes a message out of your inbox without deleting it.

A snack bar says Archived, with Undo.

Where the message goes depends on your provider:

• Most servers have an Archive folder, and the message moves there.
• At Gmail, archiving moves the message to All Mail, which is what archiving means in Gmail.
• If the account has no archive folder at all, Nixt Mail marks the message read and leaves it in the inbox, and says so: This account has no archive folder, so the message was marked read and left in the inbox. No Undo is offered, because nothing moved.

Mark as read when archiving

Settings › Message list › Mark as read when archiving is off by default: archiving moves a message and nothing else, so unread mail stays unread in the archive. Turn it on to mark an unread message read, on the server, as it is archived. Undo then brings it back to the inbox, read.

Move to trash

A snack bar says Moved to trash, with Undo. The message moves to your account’s Trash folder, where your provider keeps it until the trash is emptied. Nixt Mail has no command that deletes mail permanently.

Make the Delete key archive instead

Settings › Keyboard › Delete key chooses Move to trash (default) or Archive. With Archive, Delete and Backspace archive the selected mail; Move to Trash is still in the menu, the toolbar and the row menu, and the menu stops showing the key beside it.

What opens next

After you archive, trash or move the open message, Settings › Message list › After archiving or deleting decides what opens:

If there is no message in the chosen direction, the one on the other side opens.

Move to a folder

A snack bar says Moved to followed by the folder’s name, with Undo.

• The toolbar and menu list the account’s folders except the Inbox; the menu also leaves out the folder the message is already in.
• When you drag, a folder lights up only if the message can move there. A folder does not accept a message that is already in it.
• Moving to a folder needs a connection. Dragging works in the wider layouts; on a narrow window, a sideways drag is a swipe.

Folders are created, renamed and deleted with your provider, and the changes appear in the sidebar at the next refresh.

Junk

To move a message to your Junk folder:

• Right-click the row and choose Mark as junk, or
• Choose Message › Mark as Junk.

The message moves to the account’s Junk folder, with Undo. For a message already in Junk, the item reads Not junk (or Not Junk in the menu) and moves it back to the Inbox.

These items appear when the account’s server has a Junk folder.

Block a sender

Blocking sends a sender’s mail to Junk as it arrives, without a notification.

1. Right-click a message from them and choose Block sender…, or choose Message › Block Sender… with the message open.
2. The dialog is titled Block address**?** and says how many of their messages in the inbox on screen will move to Junk now. To block everyone at their domain, tick Everyone at domain. Mail from a domain under it is blocked too: blocking @example.com also blocks mail from news.example.com. The tick is not offered for public providers such as Gmail or Outlook, where everyone at the domain is everyone.
3. Click Block, or Not now to block nobody.

A snack bar confirms the block and how many messages moved, with Undo. Undo unblocks them and moves those messages back.

After that:

• New mail from them goes to the account’s Junk folder as it arrives, before any rule runs, and is not announced. On a server with no Junk folder it goes to the trash.
• Mail from them that is already in an inbox moves to Junk when you open that inbox, including All inboxes. Search results and other folders are left alone.

Block sender… is offered only for mail in a connected account.

To see who is blocked, unblock someone, or block an address or domain by typing it, open Settings › Privacy and security › Blocked senders. See Settings.

Flag

Flags are kept on the server, so a message you flag in Nixt Mail is flagged in your other mail apps too.

A flagged message shows an amber flag in the list. To clear a flag, do the same thing again.

Keep flagged mail at the top

Turn on Settings › Message list › Flagged mail at the top to list flagged messages first and everything else after, each part in the order you chose. It is off by default.

Read and unread

Opening a message marks it read, as Settings › Reading › Mark as read says (see When a message is marked read).

To mark a message unread:

Marking the open message unread closes it — staying on it would mark it read again — and a snack bar says Marked unread.

A swipe set to Mark read or unread marks an unread message read and a read message unread, without opening it or closing what is open.

Snooze

Snoozing hides a message until a time you choose, then puts it back in the list.

Snooze a message

• Right-click the row and choose a Snooze — item, or
• Choose Message › Snooze and pick a time, or
• On a narrow window, set a swipe to Snooze until tomorrow and swipe the row.

The morning hour is 08:00 unless you change Settings › Message list › Snoozed mail returns at (06:00 to 10:00). The weekend is Saturday and Sunday, so This weekend is Saturday and Next week is Monday, unless you change Settings › General › Weekend — with a Friday and Saturday weekend, they are Friday and Sunday.

See and wake snoozed messages

When anything is snoozed, the message list header shows, for example, 3 asleep. Click it to see the snoozed messages; each row shows when it comes back, such as Back tomorrow, 08:00, Back Monday, 08:00 or Back 12 Sep. Click Back to inbox to return to your mail.

To bring a message back early, right-click it and choose Bring back now, or choose Message › Bring Back Now. Swiping a snoozed message with the snooze swipe also brings it back.

What to know about snooze

• Snooze is kept on this device only. The message stays where it is on your server and still appears in your other mail apps. Nixt Mail stores only which message and when it wakes — nothing about its content.
• A message that comes back while Nixt Mail is open returns as it was. To have it marked unread so it reads as new, turn on Settings › Message list › Snoozed mail returns unread. A message whose time passed while Nixt Mail was closed comes back as it was.

Selecting several messages

Make a selection

With more than one message selected, the reading pane stops showing mail and says N messages selected — Anything below applies to all of them, and can be undone.

Act on a selection

• Flag flags every selected message if any of them is unflagged; if all are flagged, the button reads Clear flags and clears them.
• Mark unread is offered when at least one selected message is read.
• Reply, Reply all and Forward — and their keys R, A and F — do nothing with several messages selected, because there is no single message to answer.

After archiving or trashing a selection, one snack bar covers the lot: Archived 12 messages or Moved to trash 12 messages, with a single Undo that puts every one back. If some could not be moved, it says, for example, Archived 10 of 12 — 2 could not be moved.

On a phone

1. Touch and hold a message and choose Select. The title says 1 selected, and the floating navigation becomes a bar of actions.
2. Touch other messages to add them; touch a chosen one again to take it out. A chosen message shows a tick in place of the sender’s picture.
3. Choose Select all at the top right to choose every message in the list, or Deselect all to choose none.
4. Choose an action:

Choosing ends after an action, or when you choose × (Done) at the top left, go back, or change folder.

Ask before trashing several

Turn on Settings › Message list › Confirm before deleting several messages to confirm before moving two or more selected messages to the trash, by key, menu or button. The dialog asks Move N messages to the trash? — They can be brought back from the trash, or with Undo straight afterwards. — with Cancel and Move to trash. Nothing moves while it asks. One message still goes straight to the trash, with Undo. It is off by default.

Swipes

On a narrow window, swiping a row sideways runs an action. The row springs back into place as the action runs; archive and trash offer Undo. A swipe never opens the message.

As you swipe, the colour and word behind the row show what will happen: Read or Unread, Flag or Unflag, Snooze, Archive or Trash. Press and hold a row for every other action.

Undo

After these actions a snack bar at the bottom of the window offers Undo for a few seconds:

Choose Undo to put the message back where it was. If the server refuses, a snack bar says Couldn’t undo that — the server refused.

To reverse flagging, marking unread or snoozing, repeat the action, or use Bring back now for a snoozed message. Sending has its own undo; see Undo sending.

Edit › Undo and ⌘Z (Ctrl+Z on Windows and Linux) undo typing in a text field. They do not undo actions on mail.

Working offline

If you keep offline mail and have no connection, the mail you see is the copy on this device. Actions that change the server need a connection; while offline, a snack bar says, for example, Can’t archive this while offline. This message is the copy kept on this device; reconnect to change it on the server. The same message appears for flagging, marking read or unread, moving to the trash and acting on a selection.

Error messages

Export a folder

Save every message in a folder as one .mbox file, which Thunderbird, Apple Mail and most other mail programs and archive tools can open:

• Right-click the folder in the sidebar and choose Export as mbox…, or
• Open the folder and choose Export as mbox… from the list’s ⋯ (tooltip List options), or
• Choose File › Export Mailbox….

The file goes to your Downloads folder, named after the folder and the date — for example Inbox 2026-10-07.mbox. While it is being written a snack bar says Exporting and the folder’s name; when it is done, it says how many messages were saved and the file’s name. Each message is saved whole, with its attachments, as your mail server holds it. A large folder can take a while.