nylas
Feature Request: Choose sort direction of conversation view / change thread message order/sort / newest.recent first
Requirement: System shall provide the option to select the sorting order for emails in the conversation panel from earliest to latest and vice versa.
Rationale: Sometimes for user it is more convenient to see new emails on top of conversation section, so that they aren't required to scroll to very bottom of the list. I usually got up to 200 emails in one thread, and for me the app is practically unusable, because I spend more time on scrolling to the bottom instead of actually got an idea of what is actually written in the latest email. Outlook approaches it well as it allows user to set up the desired way of sorting. I think users will appreciate having the same option in Nylas.
Thanks!
+1
Once there are more than 10 or so messages it starts getting very annoying having to scroll down to get on with things when the content above offers nothing but a list of expandable options all with the same subject line etc :)
+1 I can't understand why anyone would want to scroll down to see latest messages in a thread. Even with the 'collapsed' messages from the thread it still gets in the way of seeing the latest message in that thread.
- 1 Agreed, from a usability standpoint this is one thing that is incredibly frustrating. When emailing clients back and fourth about a project I often have to spend a lot of time deciphering where the conversation has even left off.
When emailing clients back and fourth about a project I often have to spend a lot of time deciphering where the conversation has even left off.
This ^. Not great UX.
Hey folks! Thanks for filing this. The way this is /supposed/ to work, N1 collapses all the read emails on the thread, presenting the first unread email above the fold and additional unread emails below that (with the newest at the bottom.) Our current approach should be identical to Gmail's web UI.
For example, in this thread I'd already read six messages and sent a reply, and then a new response came in. Clicking the thread, I see this:
I think it'd totally make sense to allow the order to be flipped, but it's more complicated than just changing the sort order. (N1 would start displaying the composer at the top, which would probably be annoying.) I'm wondering if the "read message collapsing" isn't working properly in some scenarios, and it's making things especially painful in the current design?
Hey @bengotow -
I had just made the switch from Sparrow, mostly because it isn't supported anymore since it was aquired by Google and they did away with it (RIP), but maybe I am just used to the older messages being collapsed at the bottom of the thread leaving the most recent at the top, much like the order of emails in the in the 2 panel layout. I am still new to N1 and maybe there is a glitch happening where it is not organizing the collapsed older messages properly, I'll have to keep my eye on it after I respond to another email.
The other thing I noticed with the reply being at the bottom, is that I have to scroll up to see the previous response if I need to refer to something they had said. Personally, I think flipping the order would be much better but like I said, maybe I just have to refactor my way of thinking on how email "should look".
@bengotow Same here, while I see your point to me it makes much more sense to have newer images on top. As @jryanad also mentioned, after all is also the order emails are shown on the message list pane.
Regarding the composer appearing at the top, to me it also feels like it would be preferable. Like @jryanad I've also had situations where pressing Reply would push the composer outside the viewport, making it really confusing what was going on.
I was wondering whether N1 has this sort mechanism. I like my emails with the oldest at the top. I work my pile "down". I tried to find the sort order that Apple Mail gives me and I am not sure if it was me who didn't spend enough time figuring it out.
@Afrowave This issue is for sorting the emails within each thread. What you're asking for is a different feature—https://github.com/nylas/N1/issues/10.
I very much agree, from a users standpoint who receives a ton of multithread emails it's practically unusable for me because of the amount of time I spend scrolling down to the bottom. However, I really like the design and layout of N1 but I'm having a hard time sticking with it due to the constant scrolling.
Another request: https://nylas.zendesk.com/agent/tickets/4517
One more thing, not as important as the previous one, is that there should be an option in the Preferences window where you can choose if you want to see the most recent email on top of the thread or at the bottom of everything. Currently, most recent emails are at the botton of the thread, which for me makes no sense, but that's probably because I use Mail for Mac a lot, and there new emails go on top. New = Up // Old=Down is the logic way to me, but it could be diferent for diferent people. Being able to customize that would be awesome.
+1, really odd sorting through email conversations in the current order.
This would also handily help get around another issue when composing replies in longer threads. Sometimes I scroll down but get jolted up when typing a response, I don't think this would happen if the emails were in the other order.
This view is possible using the View Settings functionality on the View tab in Outlook
- Click the View tab
- Click Show as Conversations check box in the Messages section
- Click View Settings - the Advanced View Settings pop-up will be displayed
- Click Group By... Set Group Items By to Conversation, Ascending
- Click OK
- Click Sort... select Conversation Index, Ascending
- Click OK
- Optional* click the Conversation Settings drop down in the Messages section under the Show as Conversations check box and select Use Classic Indented View
You will be returned to your inbox your emails will be displayed grouped by conversations and the emails in the conversations will be displayed in the order they were received (oldest to newest).
Hope this helps.
After 2.5 years the feature of sorting by newest emails on top are not implemented? What is going on????? Such a nice mail client but totally unusable because of that...
I just switched from Thunderbird and setup three of four email accounts before I discovered you can't sort the emails with newest on top. That is a deal-killer for me and makes the app absolutely unusable.
OK, on to another email app :/ Anyone got suggestions?
It looks like that feature exists. Go to Edit.., Preferences.. Scroll down to Reading, and select 'Display conversations in descending chronological order'
it takes effect next time you select an email to read.
@joe-3d Hmm doesn't show up for me in Nylas Mail v2.0.32 on macOS High Sierra (10.13.6).
But it shows up in Mailspring (a fork of Nylas) so maybe it does work but perhaps in a beta version of Nylas Mail.
I realised after my last comment that Nylas Mail is no longer maintained. It says so on their README:
Nylas Mail was initially released and open-sourced in early 2015 and was maintained by Nylas until Spring 2017. While Nylas no longer supports Nylas Mail...
I've switched to Mailspring which is the most active fork, and has this feature.
@cnavarro see above about how this is no longer maintained. I recommend checking out Mailspring https://getmailspring.com/
I was so excited to see the Mailspring site and your reply here! Sadly, though, after installing, Mailspring refuses to connect to my Office365 account : (
The search continues - Spark has been nothing but a headache. If only Thunderbird would connect to an Office 365 account directly (my university's Office 365 refuses IMAP which is how this still unfinished journey started). Amazing that we still can't get a decent email client here in 2018.
Hard to believe that something as seemingly simple to implement, requested by so many people (I too, would like to have newest emails at the top), still hasn't been implemented 2 years after being requested. Trying out Mailspring now (which, ironically, I wouldn't have known about / tried were it not for this, rather long, issue page for Spark).
I would have been happy to pay for eM Client, but this is just too annoying, and the fact that this hasn't been addressed after so long doesn't bode well for the product's future.
I mean... the project was sunsetted 2 years ago... so you're probably right. https://www.nylas.com/blog/sunsetting-nylas-mail-development/
quoting above: "@cnavarro see above about how this is no longer maintained. I recommend checking out Mailspring https://getmailspring.com/"
This has been open for 5 years? I just switched to Spark recently mostly due to frustration with macOS builtin mail and calendar apps. Has this not been implemented yet? Any workarounds?
What the heck? How hard can this be? Long email chains are virtually impossible to read because the separation of replies from received emails is absolutely ridiculous. Since it's clear they have no intention of fixing this I guess it's time to find a new client.
I can't believe this is still not implemented! this will probably be the reason I go back to apple Mail.
@eirannejad @oshunluvr @theotherfella As already stated above, this project was sunset ~3.5 years ago.
https://github.com/nylas/nylas-mail/issues/1071#issuecomment-530700656
And in the main description of the repo "⚠️ Nylas Mail was initially released and open-sourced in early 2015 and was maintained by Nylas until Spring 2017. While Nylas no longer supports Nylas Mail, you can download the latest release or build it from source. There are also several forks that are being actively developed and maintained."