Using your Inbox

Your Inbox is a window into everything that has reached your assistant address — every email you forwarded, every thread you CC'd it on — laid out newest-first and grouped into conversations you can read in full.

Open your Inbox

Finding your Inbox

Click Inbox in the left-hand navigation of the Deck app. On desktop, the header shows your assistant's address as a chip — click it to copy the address to your clipboard, ready to paste into a Forward or To: field.

The address chip is hidden on small mobile screens. If you're on a phone and need the address, grab it from Settings → Email Assistant instead.

Reading the message list

Each row in the list shows, at a glance:

• The sender's avatar and name
• The subject
• A short preview of the message
• The date it arrived, as MMM D (for example, Nov 15)

Messages are sorted newest-first. When the list runs long, a Load more button at the bottom pulls in the next batch (20 at a time).

Use the Refresh control to pull in mail that arrived while you were looking.

Unread vs. read

• Unread messages show a blue dot and appear in bold.
• Opening a message marks it read automatically — no extra click.
• You can flip a message back and forth with the Mark read / Mark unread button in the detail view.

Read status is per message and per person — marking one message in a thread read doesn't touch the others, and it's tracked for you alone.

Opening a message

Click any message to open the detail view. Deck renders the email as the sender formatted it — links, lists, and layout intact. If a message has no formatted version, you'll see the plain-text version with a short notice.

A details dropdown reveals the full envelope — from, to, cc, date, and subject — when you want to see exactly who was on the message.

For your safety, Deck renders email in a sandboxed frame and strips scripts, forms, and embedded content. Most messages look exactly as intended; occasionally an interactive element or unusual style won't render.

Working with threads

When a message is part of a back-and-forth, the detail view shows the whole thread as one conversation:

• The message you opened is expanded; the others are collapsed.
• Click any message to expand or collapse it.
• The header shows a message count (for example, 3 messages) and lets you see every participant and their address.

Deck groups messages into threads using standard email reply and reference headers, so a conversation stays together even as it grows.

When something looks off

What you see	What it means
Empty inbox	Nothing has reached your assistant yet. Forward something, or CC your assistant on a thread, to get started.
Setup prompt	You haven't configured an email assistant. Use Go to settings to set one up.
"Assistant is disabled" banner	Your assistant exists but is turned off — incoming email won't be processed until you re-enable it in settings.
Load error	The inbox couldn't load. Retry, or check your connection.

Good to know

• Read-only. The Inbox is for reading and triaging — there's no compose, reply, archive, or delete here. To bring your assistant into a reply, CC it on the thread from your own email client.
• No search yet. You navigate the list with Load more and Refresh rather than a search box.
• Very long threads load a generous slice of their messages; an extremely long conversation may not show every single message at once.

Read next

• Managing Contacts — decide which senders reach your assistant.
• How to engage with your assistant — what to send and how to ask.
• Use your assistant address directly — point newsletters, alerts, and notifications straight at your Inbox.

Common questions

Can I delete or archive a message?

Not from the Inbox today — it's a read-only view. Messages stay so you (and your assistant) keep the full history.

Why did a message mark itself read?

Opening a message marks it read automatically. If you want it to stand out again, use Mark unread in the detail view.

Is the rendered email safe to open?

Yes — Deck strips scripts and active content and renders email in a sandboxed frame. That safety pass is also why a rare interactive element might not display.