Email

Read, write, reply to and file your email inside Rocketbatch: one mailbox list with folders, a reading view that shows the whole conversation, a compose window, and the links that turn a mail into a task, a project entry or a contact.

Open your mail from Mails in the menu. Everything in this chapter needs a mail account connected first — see Your mail account and background sync.

Mailboxes and folders

Inbox, Sent Mail, Drafts, Trash and Spam sit as fixed buttons on the left; every other folder of your account shows up underneath as a chip, with subfolders one click deeper. The fixed buttons find the right folder whatever your provider calls it, so they work on a plain mailbox as well as on Gmail.

How to use it

1. With your mail account connected, click Inbox, Sent Mail, Drafts, Trash or Spam on the left, or one of the chips under Folders.
2. The list reloads with that folder's mails. A mail or draft you had open is closed.
3. A chip that has subfolders opens them when you click it; the x takes you back to the top level.
4. To file mails away, drag one or more selected rows onto a chip under Folders. The mails leave the current list and are moved into that folder in your mail account.
5. Under the list on the right you see how many mails are loaded out of how many the folder holds. Scrolling to the bottom loads the next batch.

Good to know: the folder you click is pulled to the front of the background download queue, so the folder you are actually looking at fills up first. Dragging mails onto a collection instead of a folder does not move them — it attaches that collection to them. Only mails Rocketbatch has already picked up can be dragged.

Related features

Reading mail, Finding mail, Your mail account and background sync

Reading mail

Opening a mail replaces the list with the reading view. The text is shown as a short preview first and filled in a moment later from the copy on your computer, from the mail account or from what Rocketbatch has stored — whichever has it.

How to use it

1. Double-click a mail's row in the list.
2. The list is replaced by the reading view with the full mail. The mail is marked as read, both in your mail account and in Rocketbatch, and the blue unread mark on its row disappears.
3. If the mail belongs to a thread, the other messages are gathered above and below it under a Conversation header. Click a line to open that message here; click the header to fold them away.
4. The globe button floating over the top right of the mail body opens this mail in your normal web browser.
5. The back arrow at the top left closes the mail and shows the list again.
6. To change the read state without opening anything, tick one or more mails, right-click and choose Mark as read or Mark as unread. The blue mark on the rows appears or disappears at once.
7. Click the Unread emails tab above the list to hide everything you have already read; All emails brings the rest back.

Good to know: a mail you open from the Drafts folder does not open in the reading view — it goes straight back into the compose window. If no source has the mail's text, the body stays at the short preview. And if a read/unread change cannot be saved, the rows flip back and a message asks you to retry.

Related features

Replying and forwarding, Writing help, Attachments, Finding mail

Replying and forwarding

Short answers are written straight under the open mail. Two arrow buttons decide whether the answer goes to the sender alone or to everyone on the mail, and an answer that grows too long can be moved into the full compose window without losing what you already typed.

How to use it

1. With a mail open, type into the Reply... box at the bottom.
2. Choose the single arrow to answer the sender only, or the double arrow to answer everyone on the mail. The active one is highlighted.
3. Click the paper plane on the right. The answer goes out with Re: in front of the original subject and the original mail quoted underneath; the reading view closes and the reply box is cleared.
4. To move a half-written answer into the full compose window — recipients and quoted mail included — click the expand button in the reply bar.
5. To send the mail on to someone else, click the forward arrow in the reply bar. The compose window opens with the mail quoted below an empty body, so you can add recipients and send it on.

Good to know: when you answer everyone, the other recipients are carried over but your own address is left out.

Related features

Writing mail, Writing help

Writing mail

The compose window takes recipients with suggestions from your address book, copy and blind-copy rows that stay hidden until you need them, formatted text with your signature already in place, and the project or collection the mail should be filed under.

How to use it

1. Click New email in the top bar on the right. The compose window opens with empty recipients, an empty body and your signature already inserted if you have one.
2. Type into To. Suggestions come from your address book, and each accepted recipient becomes a chip. The Cc and Bcc links on the right of that row show and hide the copy and blind-copy fields.
3. Use Add project and Add to collection if the mail should be filed on a project or in collections.
4. Write the message. The toolbar has buttons for images, links and attachments, and Refine rewrites the text you selected — or drafts the reply for you when you opened the window from a mail.
5. With at least one recipient filled in, click Send at the bottom right. The mail goes out, the window closes and the mail list is shown again. The sent folder is refreshed right away, so the mail turns up there without waiting.
6. To keep a half-written mail instead, click Save. It is filed in the drafts folder of your mail account and Saved is shown.
7. Close shuts the compose window and shows the mail list again.

Good to know: anyone you write to who is not yet in your address book is added as a contact when the mail goes out, and the mail is recorded on them. A mail written from a draft removes that draft once it is sent, and if sending fails the mail is kept as a draft so nothing is lost. If a draft cannot be filed in the mail account, it is written to a file on your computer instead and a message says so. When the mail cannot be built from what you filled in, the message "Data are wrong. Please check Mailcontent." appears.

Related features

Attachments, Replying and forwarding, Mail and your contacts

Attachments

Attached files show as cards under the mail text and as a paperclip in the list. Several of them can be taken out together as one zip, and files are attached to an outgoing mail simply by dropping them onto the compose window.

How to use it

1. With the compose window open, drag files from your computer onto it, or use the paperclip in the toolbar. Each file appears as a chip above the send buttons and goes out with the mail; the small x on a chip removes it again.
2. In a mail that carries files, the attachments are shown as one card per file under the mail text.
3. Tick the cards you want and choose to save them or to forward them. The chosen files are packed into one zip: saving asks for a folder and then opens it, forwarding opens a new mail with the zip already attached.

Good to know: in the mail list, the paperclip column shows a paperclip when a mail carries files and a speech bubble when it carries comments; its tooltip names the first attached file.

Related features

Reading mail, Writing mail

Writing help

Three kinds of help sit around a mail: a summary of a long message or of a whole thread, ready-made answers offered as buttons under the reply box, and a rewrite of what you already typed.

How to use it

1. With a mail open, click the sparkles button next to the subject. In a conversation, choose Summarize whole conversation or Just this message.
2. The summary replaces the mail text and two links appear, [ Show original ] and [ Show summary ], to flip between the two.
3. Once the mail's text has loaded, click the sparkles button in the reply bar to be offered ready-made answers. The button pulses while they are written, then a row of short answer buttons appears under the reply box.
4. Click one of them to put its text into the reply box, where you can still edit it before sending. If nothing usable comes back, a line says so and can be dismissed.
5. To improve what you typed yourself, click the wand in the reply bar and pick shorter, more polite or more formal — or give an instruction of your own.

Good to know: a summary is kept, so opening the same mail again shows it immediately without being generated a second time. Quoted history and signatures are left out of what is summarized.

Related features

Reading mail, Replying and forwarding

Finding mail

Four ways to cut a mailbox down to what you are looking for: the keyword search, the Filter form, the All/Unread tabs, and the Collections and Projects lists on the left.

How to use it

1. Type into the Search field above the list. The mails already loaded are narrowed immediately as you type; from the third character on, the search also runs over the whole mailbox and replaces the list with the matches. The counter under the list shows how many were found, and scrolling down loads more of them.
2. For a targeted search, click the Filter pill above the search field, fill in From, To, Subject, Has the words, Date from or Date to, and click Search now. The list then shows only the mails of the folder matching those criteria.
3. To pull together the whole correspondence with one person, right-click their mail's row and choose Search this contact. Their address is put into the search field and the list shows the mails to and from that person.
4. Use the All emails and Unread emails tabs above the list to switch between every mail of the folder and only the unread ones.
5. Click a collection in the Collections list on the left to see only the mails filed under it. Picking a project in the Projects list below works the same way, and both can be combined.

Good to know: if a folder looks empty, check whether the Unread emails tab is still active or a collection or project is still picked — the All emails tab and clearing the picks bring everything back.

Related features

Mailboxes and folders, Mail and your contacts

Deleting mail

Deleting always asks one question first: keep the history or not. Either way the mail is removed from the mail account itself and from the copy on your computer.

How to use it

1. Tick at least one mail in the list, right-click and choose Delete selected mails.
2. Pick Delete – keep history or Delete permanently.
3. The rows disappear at once. Delete – keep history takes the mail out of the mailbox but leaves its record inside Rocketbatch, so it still shows on the contact or project it belongs to. Delete permanently removes the mail and its history for good, and it cannot be recovered.
4. To delete the mail you are reading, use the bin button in its button row.

Good to know: if the deletion fails, the folder is reloaded and a message explains why.

Related features

Mail and your contacts, Mailboxes and folders

Mail and your contacts

Mail is not kept apart from the rest of the app: a mail can be looked up against your address book, filed on a project and in collections — which also makes it visible to the team — and handed to a colleague as a task carrying its text and its files.

How to use it

1. Open a mail. If contacts in your address book match its sender, they are offered on the left under maybe interesting?.
2. To file the mail, click the lock icon in its button row. A closed lock means the mail is yours alone.
3. Pick a project and tick the collections you want, then click the check mark. The pickers close, the chosen project and collections appear as pills under the header, and the lock opens to show that the mail is now visible to the team. The x cancels and leaves the mail as it was.
4. To hand the mail over, click the share arrow in its button row, pick the person, adjust the title, add a note and confirm. A task is created for that person carrying the mail's text and its attachments, Task created is shown and the task counter in the menu is refreshed. You can choose to follow the task yourself.

Good to know: when a mail is filed, its full text is stored with it, so it can be read later from the contact, project or task it is linked to. The collection and project pills under the header are hidden as long as a mail is filed nowhere.

Related features

Finding mail, Deleting mail, Reading mail

Your mail account and background sync

One mail account is connected in the settings with the incoming and outgoing server of your provider. Once it is connected, your mail is downloaded into a local copy in the background, so the list fills up without you waiting for it.

How to use it

1. With the server settings of your mail provider at hand, open Settings from the menu and go to Account informations.
2. In the Mailsettings block, fill in Mailaccount Name (a name of your own for this account) and Name (the name recipients see on the mails you send).
3. Fill in the incoming server — Imap Host, Imap Port and Secure connection type — and the Email/Username and Password you sign in to the mailbox with.
4. Fill in the outgoing server — Smtp Host, Smtp Port and Secure connection type.
5. Click Save. Rocketbatch connects to the mailbox, lists its folders, binds Inbox, Sent Mail, Drafts, Trash and Spam to the buttons on the left, and starts downloading your mail in the background.
6. If a Gmail account refuses the sign-in although the settings are right, click Show change Gmail-Settings. for instructions.
7. To watch the download, click Show Status under the folder list: it reveals a progress bar and a pause button. Clicking again hides it.
8. The signature that is put into every new mail has its own settings page.

Good to know: your mail password is not stored or used on the Rocketbatch servers — it is kept encrypted on your own computer. The connection is checked every couple of minutes and re-established when it drops, and new mail in the inbox is picked up as it arrives. Right after signing in, the list is filled from Rocketbatch's own copy of your mail before the mail account itself has finished connecting, so the first mails appear without waiting; if the session has expired the list can come back empty once and refills on its own. With no mail account entered, the mail view reports that mail is not set up and stays empty, and if the account cannot be reached a message says the mail account was not found.

Related features

Mailboxes and folders, Reading mail