Writing and sending

Writing email

Compose and choose a sender

Click Compose to start a new email. Pick a mailbox or one of its explicit aliases in the From menu. Aliases use the parent mailbox's display name and signature. You can set any available address as your default sender in preferences.

Track a reply

Sending does not assume that you expect a response. Turn on Track reply in the composer to add the conversation to Waiting when the message is sent. The conversation panel has the same control, and it is also where you stop tracking. Replies on a tracked conversation keep it tracked unless you turn the composer control off before sending.

Formatting

The web editor supports font family and size, text and highlight colors, bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, inline code, code blocks, headings, bulleted and numbered lists, quotes, indents, links, and clearing formatting in new messages, replies, and forwards. A new message without formatting or a signature is sent with only a plain-text body. Add recipients in To, and open Cc or Bcc when you need them. Separate addresses with a comma, a semicolon or a new line. A pasted list of addresses becomes one recipient each, and an address that is not valid is marked in red before you send.

Press ⌘K (Ctrl+K on Windows and Linux) in the message body to add a link to the selected text. Outside the body, the same keys open the command palette.

Quote (⌘⇧9) sets the paragraph off with a line on its left, and typing > and a space at the start of a line does the same. Recipients see it as a quote in their email app, and the plain-text version starts each quoted line with >. Indent (⌘]) and Decrease indent (⌘[) move a paragraph in steps, up to five. In a list they nest or un-nest the item, as do Tab and Shift+Tab.

Wrap text in backticks, like `npm install`, or press ⌘E (Ctrl+E on Windows and Linux) to mark it as inline code. Type three backticks and a space at the start of a line for a code block, which keeps your spacing and line breaks. Type ## and a space for a heading, or ### and a space for a subheading. The same controls are in the toolbar, under More formatting when the composer is narrow. Code and headings keep their look in Gmail, Outlook and other email apps.

Each paragraph is followed by one blank line, in the editor and in the email you send. Press Shift+Enter to start a new line inside the same paragraph, and press Enter on an empty line to add more space.

Attachments and drafts

Attach up to 20 files, with a limit of 25 MB per file and 25 MB total.

Attachments and inline images upload privately in new messages and replies. Wait for each upload to finish before sending. If an upload fails, remove the failed file to send without it, or attach it again to retry. Your message text stays in the editor.

If your message mentions an attachment, with words such as "attached", "pièce jointe" or "adjunto", and nothing is attached, Shipmail asks once before sending. Choose Attach file to pick one, or Send anyway. Quoted text and your signature are not checked.

New messages and replies save as drafts a couple of seconds after you pause typing. Closing the composer or the reply asks whether to save the draft or delete it, and a saved reply draft reopens in place when you click it in the conversation. Drafts you keep can also be deleted later from the Drafts folder.

A conversation with a saved draft shows a Draft label in the inbox list. In the conversation, the draft shows who it is from, its first line and when it was last saved, and the conversation keeps its own title and the message you are answering open. A reply draft opened from the Drafts folder is titled Reply, and a forward Forward.

If you refresh the page mid-sentence, the composer reopens with what you had typed. The open composer is part of the page address, so the same link reopens it in another tab. If the same draft is open in two tabs, the last one to save wins and no duplicate is created. Once one tab sends that draft, sending it from the other tab is refused, so it goes out only once.

A send time you picked but have not confirmed belongs to the draft. Close the composer or move around the app and the draft reopens with Send later still on and your time in place, so the button stays Schedule and nothing goes out by accident. If that time has already passed by the time you come back, scheduling stays on with the time cleared, and Shipmail asks you to pick a new one.

On mobile

In the web composer on a phone, the send button shows only its icon. Formatting controls sit below the subject and above the message body. Attachment, scheduling, saved-reply, and reply-tracking actions stay in the bottom row. Toolbar menus open as bottom sheets. Under More actions, the reply-arrow option Track reply keeps a sent conversation in Waiting on them until a reply arrives or you end the wait. It does not schedule delivery.

In the mobile app, Add attachment opens the system document picker. Send stays unavailable until every selected file finishes uploading. If the app leaves the foreground during an upload, Shipmail cancels it and tells you to add the file again. The upload does not resume in the background. As you enter a recipient, the mobile composer suggests saved contacts and recent recipients from the selected mailbox. It also includes Track reply for new messages and replies.

Saved replies

Use Saved replies from the composer toolbar to insert common answers without retyping them. If you already wrote the text, pick Save draft as reply from the same menu to keep it. A saved reply belongs to you. If your organization has teammates, you can choose to share one with everyone, or with everyone who uses a particular mailbox.

Replying and forwarding

Use Reply, Reply all, or Forward from any message. Reply and reply all fill in the recipients for you. Forward keeps the original attachments and quotes the message you are passing along. Replies and forwards support attachments and scheduling, like a new email. When a message was delivered to an alias, Shipmail selects that alias for the reply when possible. You can change it from the reply composer's From menu.

Scheduling and undo send

To send an email at a later time, click Send later in the composer and pick a suggested time, like tomorrow morning or Monday morning, or choose your own date and time. The suggestions default to 8:00 AM for mornings and 1:00 PM for afternoons; change them under Settings > Preferences to match when your day starts. Scheduled emails wait in the Scheduled folder. Opening one shows the message exactly as it will arrive, with its send time. Reschedulemoves it, Send now sends it right away with your undo window, and the trash icon deletes it so it never goes out. Undoing a Send now puts the email back on its original schedule rather than turning it into a draft. Edit reopens any scheduled email in the composer, whatever created it, including the API, an SDK, or an AI assistant. Changing the recipients, subject, attachments, or send time keeps the original content exactly. Editing the text of an email created through the API may drop formatting the editor can't show, like tables or buttons. A scheduled reply also shows in its conversation with a Scheduled badge and the send time.

After sending from the web inbox, one confirmation toast offers Undoduring your undo window. When the window closes, the same toast replaces Undo with View message, which opens new emails in Sent and replies in their existing conversation. The message expands and scrolls into view. If undo send is off, View message is available immediately.

For everyday sending, undo send holds each email for a few seconds after you hit Send so you can take it back. See Undo send to set your window.

Frequently asked questions