Fastmail – Grouped Mailbox

Today we’re launching the ability to split your inbox into sections so the messages that matter most are always at the top, and related mail sits together. You can set groups in other folders or labels too, and even saved searches.

Grouping is available on every plan, on the web and in all our apps. It’s entirely opt-in: nothing changes until you turn it on.

Why groups?

Most inboxes are sorted one way: newest first. That’s simple, but it treats every message the same. The email from your team, the calendar invite waiting for a reply, and the “your parcel has shipped” notification are jumbled together in one long list.

With our pinned-on-top feature, you could manually push important messages to the top, but mailbox groups take this a step further by letting you pre-sort your inbox automatically.

Ready-made groupings

Open the More menu (⋯) at the top of your message list and choose a grouping:

• By age: today, yesterday, this week, this month, and older. Perfect for catching up after a few days away.
• Pinned first: the conversations you’ve pinned, then everything else.
• Unread first: anything you haven’t read yet at the top, with the rest below.

Each section header shows how many conversations it holds. Click a header to collapse a section you don’t need right now (we’ll remember that for next time), or use Select all to archive or move a whole group at once.

Grouping doesn’t replace sorting. Choose whatever sort order you like, not just newest first, and it applies within each group.

Make your own

This is where it gets really powerful.

Choose Custom… to build exactly the groups you want. Start from a few suggestions, like Pinned, Unread, Following, Calendar invites, or VIPs. If you use your own domain, there’s also an option to group mail from everyone at your organisation. Or write your own, using the same search syntax you already know, for example:

• from:@github.com — keep high-volume notifications separate
• list:jmap.ietf.org — your favourite mailing list
• to:support@example.com — anything sent to a shared alias
• subject:invoice OR subject:receipt — keep an eye on your purchases

Name each group, and drag and drop to reorder. If a conversation matches more than one group, it appears in the first one. Anything that doesn’t match ends up in a final group, which you can name whatever you like.

Groups are set separately for each folder, label, or saved search, so your inbox can be split into work, notifications and everything else, while your Archive is grouped by age. They’re saved to your account and sync everywhere.

See it in action

A few things to know

Groups work using search operators like from:, to:, subject: and is:. They can’t search the body of a message, so plain words like meeting won’t work as a group on their own. If you try something that isn’t supported, we’ll tell you which part to change.

Grouping works whether or not you have conversations turned on. With conversations off, each message is placed in a group individually.

Groups only change how your message list is laid out. Unread counts and notifications work exactly as they did before.

We hope groups help you get on top of your inbox. Give them a try and let us know what you think!