Inbox
The Inbox tab is where incoming email actually shows up. If you’ve configured one or more email accounts in Settings → Email Accounts, the Inbox polls each account via IMAP, shows you the messages, and lets you read, reply, archive, or delete them without leaving Ishvana. The point isn’t to replace your main email client — for general email management, your dedicated client probably does it better. The point is to keep author correspondence (agent queries, editor follow-ups, beta reader coordination, press outreach, reader messages) next to your writing, so you’re not alt-tabbing into Gmail forty times a day. The Inbox is specifically the surface for writing-related email, and it’s scoped accordingly.
The inbox layout
Section titled “The inbox layout”Two panes. The left pane is a message list. The right pane is the message reader.
Message list
Section titled “Message list”The list shows incoming messages from all your configured accounts, merged into one chronological stream by default. Each row has:
- From. Sender name and email.
- Subject. The message subject.
- Preview. First line or two of the message body.
- Date. Received date.
- Account indicator. A colored dot showing which of your accounts the message belongs to (if you have multiple configured).
- Status. Unread / read / replied / archived.
- Flags. Starred, important, has attachments.
Filter the list with:
- Account filter. Show only messages from a specific account.
- Unread filter. Show only unread messages.
- Search. Text search against subject, sender, and body.
- Date range.
Message reader
Section titled “Message reader”Click any message in the list and the reader pane shows the full message. Subject, from, to, date, body (as HTML or plain text), and any attachments.
Actions available from the reader:
- Reply. Opens the compose view pre-filled with the recipient and subject.
- Reply All. Same, but includes all original recipients.
- Forward. Opens compose with the message body quoted.
- Archive. Marks the message archived (removes from inbox but keeps it in cache).
- Delete. Removes the message from the local cache. Does not delete on the server — Ishvana is a read-mostly client.
- Mark as unread. Flip the read status.
- Star. Flag the message for attention.
- Send to Lore. For messages that contain author-relevant information worth preserving, create a Legendry entry from the message content.
How polling works
Section titled “How polling works”Email polling runs as a background service on the interval configured per-account (default every 5 minutes). When new messages arrive on the IMAP server, Ishvana detects them on the next poll, downloads them to the local cache, and shows them in the inbox.
If the account supports IMAP IDLE push, Ishvana uses it instead of polling — IDLE lets the server notify the client immediately when new mail arrives, which is both more responsive and more efficient than polling. IDLE is detected automatically on first connection.
Polling errors (network failures, authentication issues, server refusals) get logged to Error Tracking silently. The inbox doesn’t pop up a toast saying “polling failed” because that would be noisy — you see the error log if you care to check.
The local cache
Section titled “The local cache”Every message Ishvana has fetched from IMAP gets stored in a local cache at data/email/. The cache contains the message subject, sender, date, body, and attachment metadata (not the attachment binary unless you’ve opened it once).
The cache persists across sessions. Closing Ishvana doesn’t lose the cache. Reopening shows the same inbox without re-fetching. The persistence is why the inbox opens instantly — you’re not waiting on IMAP for every click.
The cache is populated lazily. Ishvana doesn’t mirror your entire mailbox on first connection. It fetches recent messages (last 30 days typically) and then fetches older messages on demand when you scroll back or search for them.
Search
Section titled “Search”The inbox search is plain text matching against subject, sender, and body. Type a query and the list filters in real time.
Searches run against the local cache, not against the IMAP server. This means:
- Fast. No network round-trip. Results appear as you type.
- Limited to what’s cached. A message from two years ago that’s still on the server but not in your local cache won’t appear in search results. You’d have to scroll back to trigger the cache fetch first.
For server-side searches across your entire mail history, use your main email client. For quick lookups within recent email, the inbox search is sufficient.
Multi-account handling
Section titled “Multi-account handling”If you have multiple accounts configured, the inbox shows messages from all of them merged by default. Each message has an account indicator so you can tell which account the message came from at a glance.
You can also filter to a specific account, which shows only messages from that account. Useful when you want to focus on author correspondence without seeing personal email, or vice versa.
Sending a reply uses the account the original message was sent to. If your agent emailed your author address, replying goes from your author address automatically — you don’t have to remember which account to reply from.
What the inbox isn’t
Section titled “What the inbox isn’t”- Not a full email client. No rule-based filtering, no nested folders, no server-side management, no calendar integration. For general email workflows, use your main client.
- Not a spam filter. Spam that lands in your IMAP inbox lands in Ishvana’s inbox too. Filter spam at the server level (most providers have built-in filters).
- Not a collaboration tool. No shared inboxes, no ticketing, no team features.
- Not write-back to IMAP. Archiving or deleting in Ishvana only affects the local cache. The message stays on the server. This is deliberate — Ishvana is a read-mostly client, and mutating IMAP state is a different class of feature.