Reading mail

The panes

Focus is on one pane at a time: sidebar, list or message. h and l move focus left and right. tab and ⇧tab cycle through the panes.

• In the sidebar, j k move between folders, and ⏎ or l opens one.
• In the list, j k move between messages, and the selected message shows on the right as you go. ⏎ or l moves focus into it.
• In the message, j k scroll.

J and K go to the next or previous message from any pane. When you’re reading in the right pane, that’s the fastest way through a folder.

Moving

Key
j k	down / up. Counts work: 5j
gg G	top / bottom. 12G jumps to row 12
^d ^u	half a page down / up
^f ^b	a full page down / up (also PgDn PgUp)
J K	next / previous message, from any pane
space	page down through the message; at the end, go to the next one
zz	zoom: the message fills the screen. zz or esc again to return
esc	clear the filter, then marks, then zoom

space is made for reading a whole folder: keep pressing it, and you page through each message and on to the next.

Going to folders

Key	Folder
gi	Inbox
gu	All inboxes (with more than one account)
gs gd	Sent / Drafts
ga gt	Archive / Trash
gj gf	Junk / Flagged (where the server has a flagged folder, like Gmail’s Starred)

These go to the folder on the account you’re in. $ or ^r checks for new mail now. New mail is pushed to the open folder when the server supports IMAP IDLE. Otherwise tern checks every poll_secs (60 by default). A refresh keeps your cursor on the same message.

When a message counts as read

A message is marked read once it has been open for mark_read_ms, 800 ms by default. Skimming down the list with j doesn’t mark everything you pass. Set it to 0 to mark at once. u toggles read and unread by hand.

Plain text and HTML

Mail shows as plain text. Lines wrap to the pane, and quoted text is colored by depth.

Key
H	switch this message to its HTML part, laid out for the terminal, and back
o	open the message’s HTML in your browser

In the HTML view, headings, bold, italics, links, lists, code and tables keep their shape. The email’s own colors are dropped, so it stays readable on a dark theme. o writes the HTML to ~/.cache/tern/view/ and opens it with xdg-open. A message without HTML opens as preformatted text.

Attachments, unsubscribe, the sender

Key
S	save every attachment to download_dir (default ~/Downloads). Names that already exist get a new one
U	unsubscribe through the List-Unsubscribe header. A mailto: opens a prefilled message for you to send; a link opens in the browser
A	add the sender to your contacts (the first CardDAV address book)
y	copy the sender’s address with wl-copy

Attachments are listed in the message header.

Meeting invitations

An invitation shows as a card at the top of the message: when, where, who’s coming, your current answer, and anything it overlaps in your calendars. a, t and n answer yes, maybe and no. See Events.