Labels, Filters, and Search

Organizing mail should happen for you, not by hand. This guide teaches you to tag messages with labels, sort incoming mail automatically with filters, find anything with search, and triage fast with the keyboard. After this page your inbox will keep itself in order and you will find any message in seconds.

Labels

After this section you will be able to tag and group mail your way. Labels tag messages so you can group and find them. A message can carry as many labels as you like, which is more flexible than filing it into a single folder.

  • Create, rename, recolor, and delete labels in Manage labels, so they match how you think about your mail.
  • Apply labels to the open message with Label in the reading pane, or to every selected message at once from the selection bar.
  • Filter to a label by clicking it in the rail, which shows every message that carries it.

The system folders (Inbox, Sent, and the rest) behave like fixed labels and cannot be renamed or removed; your own labels are entirely yours to manage.

The Manage labels panel in Backbuild Mail. Callout 1 marks the Create label control: a name field and an Add button. Callout 2 marks the row of color swatches used to color a label. Callout 3 marks the list of existing labels, each with an edit (pencil) and delete (trash) action on the right.
Manage labels: (1) name and create a label, (2) pick a color, (3) rename or delete any label you have made. System folders are fixed; your own labels are yours to manage.

Filters

After this section you will have rules that sort mail for you. A filter is a rule you define once: a set of conditions and the actions to take when mail matches. Filters run automatically on new mail as it arrives. Open Filters at the bottom of the rail to create and manage them.

  • Conditions: From (the sender's address or name), Subject, and Has the words (matched against the subject, the sender, and the opening lines of the message), plus has an attachment, is unread, and larger or smaller than a size. The editor also offers To and Cc, but a filter with a To or Cc condition does not match incoming mail yet.
  • Actions: skip the inbox, mark as read, mark important, star, delete, apply a label, or move to a folder. Forwarding matching mail to another address is not available yet: the editor has a forward field, but a filter that sets one carries out its other actions and does not forward.
  • Order and switches: filters apply in the order you created them, so several can act on the same message. Turn a filter off to pause it without deleting it, and edit or delete it at any time.
  • Existing mail: in the app, a filter acts on mail that arrives after you save it. To apply a filter to mail you already have, run it through the REST API.

Filters are built from a fixed set of conditions and actions, so a rule is always safe and predictable; there is no code to write and nothing arbitrary to run.

Can a filter re-run over existing mail, and do filters chain? Filters act on new mail in the app; to apply one to mail you already have, run it through the REST API. Filters apply in the order they were created, so several can act on the same incoming message.

Search

After this section you will find any message fast. Type in the search box at the top of the Email screen and press Enter. Search reads the full text of your mail, the subject, the sender, and the body, so it finds words deep inside old messages, not just recent headers.

  • Words: type one or more words, such as retainer renewal, to find messages that contain them.
  • subject: followed by a word, such as subject:invoice, matches only the subject line.
  • One filter on its own: is:unread, is:starred, is:important, has:attachment, in:sent, in:drafts, or label:"name" (quotes for a label name with spaces) lists every message that matches. These work as the whole search, not combined with words or with each other; the folder and label rail runs the same searches for you.

Searches by sender or recipient address (from: and to:), by date (after: and before:), and searches that combine a filter with words are not supported yet; the search reports that it failed. If a search fails, reload the Email screen before searching again.

What search operators are supported? Words and subject: anywhere in the message text, and on their own is:unread, is:starred, is:important, has:attachment, in:sent, in:drafts, and label:"name". Sender, recipient, and date operators, and combinations, are not supported yet.

Keyboard Shortcuts

After this section you will triage without the mouse. Backbuild Mail is built for people who live in their inbox. The shortcuts work whenever you are not typing in a field and no window or menu is open over the inbox:

  • j and k: select the next or the previous message.
  • c: compose a new message.
  • r: reply to the selected message.
  • e: archive the selected message.
  • #: move the selected message to Trash.
  • /: jump to the search box.

To act on a batch, tick the messages you want and use the selection bar to archive them, move them to Trash, mark them read, or apply a label to all of them at once.

Can I triage entirely from the keyboard? Most of it. Move through the list with j and k, and compose, reply, archive, and trash with c, r, e, and #. Applying labels and bulk actions use the mouse.

Your Settings

After this section you will have the client tuned to how you work. Your Backbuild Mail settings are kept per person and per mailbox, so your preferences follow you without changing anyone else's view. In the app you set the reading-pane placement from the toolbar: below the message list, to the right of it, or off. The other mail preferences, such as density and conversation view, are not adjustable in the app.

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