Use folders to manage your inbox

Each mail inbox has different folders to organize conversations. These folders are only stored in Replies and they have no effect on other email clients.

Here's an example:

By default, Replies automatically creates the following folders:

• VIP: Conversations from important people.
• New Customers: Conversations from customers you never sent an email to.
• Existing Customers: Conversations from customers you sent one or more emails to.
• Ping Pong: Conversations with more than one message.
• Notifications: Conversations you don't need to reply to.
• Unfiltered: Conversations not matching the other folders.

Folders help partition your inbox into manageable chunks and they help keep your priorities in order, too. For instance, you could first reply to the VIPs, then to new customers, and later work on the "Existing Customer" folder.

Folder types

Contacts folder

A contact folder filters messages based on the initiator of a conversation. The VIP and Notifications folders are examples of Contacts folders.

• To add a new contact to the folder, just drag a conversation to the folder. In the future, all conversations initiated from the same email address will be added to this folder. If the contact already exist in another folder, the contact will moved to the new folder.
• To remove the contact, open the folder settings and select the email address. Press the minus sign to remove the contact.

Smart folder

This folder filters messages based on rules. Examples of smart folders are New Customers and Ping Pong.

Here's an example smart folder definition:

Static folder

You can also create simple folders to hold conversations. For example, you want to move all conversations related to a certain software bug into one folder.

Creating and changing folders

You can freely change existing folders or add new folders. Only the "Unfiltered folder" cannot be changed. To create a new folder, follow these steps:

• Select Account > Folder from the menu and select either Add Folder, Add Smart Folder, or Add Contacts Folder. You can always change the folder type later; it's a setting in the folder settings dialog.
• Fill out the property sheet and save changes. Replies will automatically filter conversations based on the folder changes.

Understanding folder filtering

Replies filters messages according to these rules:

• A conversation can only exist in one folder.
• First the Static Folders will keep their conversations.
• Next are Contacts folder and Smart Folders. They will filter messages according to the Filtering order. Just drag the folders inside this list to change the order:

Note: You can order the folders in the source list without affecting the filtering order.