Statuses

The statuses

Open

New and waiting for someone. It is in the Inbox of its mailbox.

In progress

Someone has been assigned. It counts as open: it is in the Open view and under Assigned to me.

Closed

Dealt with. Choose Close, or press e. Choose Reopen to bring it back.

Spam

Marked as spam. Not spam moves it back to open. See Labels, snooze and spam.

In trash

Deleted, and gone for good after 30 days. Restore moves it back to open.

Snoozed and Scheduled are not statuses. A snoozed conversation is still open, just hidden until it wakes. The conversation’s status shows in its header, and every change is written in its history with who made it.

When a status changes by itself

• Assigning someone moves an open conversation to In progress.

• A reply from outside moves a closed conversation back to open, so the answer lands in the Inbox. The history says “Reopened by a new reply”. Your own mail, imported history, out-of-office answers and mail that went to Spam do not reopen it. A bounce does.

• Close after sending: when you reply, the conversation closes once the reply has gone. This is on by default under Settings, then Writing, and you can change it for one message in the composer.

• A snooze ending brings the conversation back to the top of the Inbox, unread. New mail from outside wakes it early. Closing or trashing a snoozed conversation cancels the snooze.

Close after sending is careful. It only closes a conversation that is open or in progress, that is yours or nobody’s, and that has had no new mail since you pressed Send. A send you undo, or that fails, closes nothing. See Send later and undo send.

Trash and Restore

Move to trash and Restore are the same on every conversation. Restore returns it to open, and the history says who restored it. If you send a reply in a conversation that is in Trash, the reply takes it out of Trash for you, then the usual rules apply, so Close after sending can close it. A conversation someone trashed after you pressed Send stays in Trash.