Thanks for downloading Postbox! This guide will introduce you to some of the new features in Postbox. If you have any questions, bugs, or ideas to share, please visit our Support Forum.
Contents
Quick and Easy Setup
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- Get Started in 2 Minutes!
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Once Postbox first starts, you'll be presented with our Setup Wizard. Enter your name (as shown to others), email address and password, and Postbox will Postbox will automatically determine your connection settings for you! To add additional accounts, simply select Account Settings from the Tools menu, then click the Add Mail Account button.
Start Your Engines
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- Overview
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Postbox contains a powerful search engine that enables you to find almost anything within email messages and RSS feeds. Before content can be discovered, messages and feeds must first be downloaded to your computer and then indexed by the Postbox search engine. This process will occur automatically or it can be initiated manually.
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- Automatic Indexing
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Postbox will automatically download and index your messages when it detects that your computer is idle. On modern computers, Postbox will index approximately 2,000 messages per minute. If there is a delay in the indexing process, it is most likely due to messages being downloaded.
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- Manual Indexing
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If you would like your message content to be searchable right away, you can manually start the indexing process by selecting Indexing | Index All Folders... from the Tools menu. Or, you can index the currently selected folder by selecting Indexing | Index This Folder... from the Tools menu.
Faster Search
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- Search Bar
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The Search Bar enables you to quickly search for messages and other types of content. Upon entering a search term, a drop-down menu will allow you choose between searching the currently selected folder, or all folders. The drop-down menu will also present suggestions from your search history, which is very useful way to reconstruct common searches without the overhead of creating a saved search folder. You can also type specific criteria directly into the search bar, such as "from:Scott" or "subject:Conference."
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- Advanced Search Panel
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The Advanced Search Panel enables you to enter more targeted search criteria such as sender, subject and date. For dates, you can use natural language criteria such as after: "last monday" or before: "this month." Once the Search button is clicked, your search will initiate with the search criteria displayed within the search bar.
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- Content Tabs
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Content Tabs provide fast and direct access to attachments, images, and links. Simply click on a content button within the Tab Strip to see the most recently/frequently accessed content in a new tab. Use the Search Bar or Advanced Search Panel to search by specific criteria such as subject, sender, or date.
While viewing attachments, images, or links in tab, you can use the Action Bar at the bottom of the screen to perform actions on selected content.
- Save will save the content to your hard drive.
- Send will attach the selected content to a new message.
- Quick Look or Preview will open certain kinds of content within a preview panel.
- For certain content types, such as Images, you can use the Slider to adjust your view.
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- Search by Contact
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You can also search for recent messages, attachments, images or links from your email contacts. Within the message header, click a contact to bring up the Contacts Panel, then chose which recent content type you would like to view from this person. Search results will conveniently open in a new tab. You can also search by contact from the Inspector Pane, accessible via the blue tab on the right side of the message header.
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- Search within the Compose Window
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While composing a new message, you can search for attachments, images, and links by clicking on a content icon within the Compose Sidebar, located on the right side of the compose window. Use the search bar at the top to narrow your search, or click the Advanced Search button to enter a specific search criteria. To use this content, simply double-click or drag-and-drop search results into your new message.
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- Search within the Addressing Widget
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The Addressing Widget will enable you to search for contacts by either first name, last name, or domain. Additionally, the Addressing Widget will pull in any profile pictures it finds within the address book, matches against your Facebook friends, or the people you follow on Twitter (if you are currently logged into those services within Postbox).
To pull in profile photos from Facebook or Twitter, select Web Services... from the Tools menu, and then enter your login credentials.
Better Organization
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- Simplified Account / Folder Pane
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Folder hierarchies can be overwhelming if you have several accounts. Postbox takes a "faceted" approach and only displays folders for the currently selected account. This helps you to focus on just one account at a time, such as your "work" account, while minimizing distractions from other accounts.
To move messages from one account to another, simply drag your messages to the desired account, then drop them to the desired location within the pop-up menu.
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- Tabbed Mail Browsing
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Like a Web browser, Postbox lets you view application windows in tabs — enabling you to create an efficient workspaces for everything you’re working on. Open almost anything in a tab, including messages, folders, searches, or content such as attachments and images. You can quickly switch between tabs, or even reorder tabs to customize your view.
By default, Postbox opens messages in a new tab (this setting can also be changed to windows within the Preferences menu). You can open any folder in a new tab by right-clicking the folder, then selecting Open in New Tab from the contextual menu. You can also reorder your tabs by dragging and dropping them to a desired location.
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- Topics
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Postbox Topics help you organize, view, and work with messages by keyword. A topic can be anything — a project, important client, an event, or even priority. Topics enable you to work within a specific context, focusing your attention on just one thing at a time while minimizing interruptions from unrelated messages.
To assign a topic to a selected message or group of messages:
- click the Assign Topic button in the toolbar, or
- click the Topics button in the message header, or
- or press the letter "t" when viewing a message
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Within the Topics Panel you can type in a new topic, auto-complete from a set of previously used topics, or select a topic from a list of favorites. When assigning a new topic, check Make the topic a favorite to add the topic to your list of favorites.
When you assign a topic in Postbox, all related messages within that conversation inherit the topic, in addition to all future replies.
Your Favorite Topics will appear in the Folder Pane on the left, just below your mail folders. Select a favorite to view your messages by topic within the selected folder.
Here are some interesting things to try when using Topics:
- New messages that you compose will automatically inherit the currently selected favorite topic. When a reply to your message arrives, it too will automatically inherit that topic.
- Combine Topics with Search Tabs to find attachments, images, links, or a list of contacts that relate to the Topic in view.
- To see all messages within a selected Topic, click on the Search All Folders selector within the Accounts section of the Folder Pane.
- Try clicking on the Contacts Tab (within the tab strip) to see a list of people that you’ve recently communicated with within the currently selected topic.
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Smarter Message and Content Views
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- Conversation Views
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Postbox displays messages in the Thread Pane by conversation. Each conversation is comprised of a Summary Row, with individual message threads displayed below. When the Summary Row is selected, Postbox displays messages as a single, chronological conversation.
By default Postbox will display all messages related to the current conversation from all folders, such as the Inbox, Sent, and Archive folder. To only display messages from the current folder, select Preferences from the Postbox menu, click the Display icon and then the Conversations tab, and then select the Only from the current folder radio button.
Within the message header, you can also click the Show All button to gather and expand all messages within a conversation.
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- Inspector Pane
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The Inspector Pane neatly summarizes content detected within messages and conversations, and provides a set of useful actions within the contextual menu. The Inspector Pane can be conveniently open or closed by clicking the blue tab on the right side of the message header.
The Inspector Pane first summarizes any known information about the sender, including profile picture, name, title and company. You can search for messages, attachments, images and links from this sender by clicking one of the action buttons below the profile.
Postbox will display profile pictures from your address book, and can also pull in profile pictures from your Facebook friends or the people you follow on Twitter. To login to these services from within Postbox, select Web Services... from the Tools menu, and then enter your login credentials.
Content such as attachments, images, links, addresses, etc. will display below the sender profile. Contextual menus will display a list of appropriate actions, and some content elements (such as attachment and images) can be dragged and dropped to the desktop or into new messages.
Tools to Help You Get Things Done
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- To-Do Tagging
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We often leave messages in our inbox because they represent things we need to do. Postbox provides a set of to-do features that help you use email messages to get things done.
To tag a message a To-Do, select the message and click the To-Do button within the message header. A to-do icon will appear next to the message in the Thread Pane.
Postbox enables you to pin to-dos to the top of your message list, so important items will not fall out of view (and out of mind) when new messages arrive. To turn pinning on, select Pin To-Dos from the View menu.
Not only can you convert existing messages to to-dos, but you can create new to-dos as well. Simply click the New To-Do button in the toolbar, and enter a subject and note if desired. This places a new to-do in the currently selected folder.
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- Pending
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The Pending flag within the read/unread column can be used to mark messages that are pending a response. This is particularly helpful for to-dos that you have delegated to others. To mark a message Pending, simply click in the Status column in your message list and cycle through until the watch face appears. When a message is marked Pending, the message row is dimmed light gray to indicate that no further action is required, which helps you more efficiently scan your inbox and ignore items that do not require your attention. When a new reply arrives, the pending flag is automatically removed and the message status is switched to "Unread."
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- Editing
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You can also edit a message by pressing the Edit button within the message header. This is especially useful for updating the status of a to-do without having to send a message to yourself. You can change the message subject or any part of the message body. After you've edited a message, you can either save your changes or create a copy of the message to preserve the original.
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- Archive
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You can move messages from the Inbox to a dedicated Archive Folder by clicking the Archive button in the toolbar, or by typing the letter "a" when viewing a message. Combine the use of the Archive Folder with advanced search to keep your Inbox clean, but quickly find anything you need when you need it.
Extensibility
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- Support for Add-ons
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Postbox also supports add-ons! We’ve been working with several third-party developers to port some of the most popular add-ons to Postbox, including the popular Lightning Calendaring add-on. See the list of add-ons that are currently compatible with Postbox, and expect more to come in the near future.
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- Localized Dictionaries
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For our international users, Postbox is now compatible with Mozilla localized dictionaries. Please refer to our Extensions page for instructions on how to install dictionaries within Postbox.