Opening your mail
from a brief

Every item in your brief links to the original email. On a computer that opens the message in Gmail or Outlook. On a phone it depends on which mail app you use, and one of them cannot do it.

Where each link works

• Gmail on a computer: opens the message, in the right mailbox even if you are signed in to several Google accounts.
• Outlook on the web: opens the message.
• New Outlook for Windows: opens the message in Outlook on the web. Microsoft does not currently allow any link to open the desktop app itself.
• Outlook app on a phone: opens the message.
• Apple Mail: opens the message.
• Gmail app on a phone: opens your inbox, not the message.

Why the Gmail app is different

The Gmail mobile app does not accept a link to a specific message. When you tap one, the app opens and discards the part of the link that identifies which email you wanted, so you land on your inbox instead.

This is a limitation of Gmail, not of Unfold Work. There is no setting, no workaround and no alternative link format that changes it, and no email tool has one. It is the reason products in this category organise your mailbox rather than linking into it.

We would rather tell you this than let you conclude the link is broken.

What we do about it

If you read mail on a phone, you can have each brief's emails grouped inside a single "@Unfold Work" label. You open it in your mail app and the messages are there. No link is involved, so nothing can be dropped. This works in the Gmail app, and in Outlook too, where the same labels appear as folders.

It is on from the moment you connect a mailbox, and we say so as you connect. Mailboxes connected before this was the default keep their setting; for those, there are two ways to switch it on, and both show you exactly which labels will be created before anything is written:

• From the brief itself: every brief carries a Group these in Gmail link in its footer, which is usually the moment you want it.
• From your settings: Open these from your mailbox, under "In your mailbox". This is also where you turn it off again.

Your sidebar gains one row, which expands into the same sections your brief uses:

• @Unfold Work: your briefs
• @Unfold Work / May have slipped: the mail each brief is about
• @Unfold Work / Due soon
• @Unfold Work / Needs you
• @Unfold Work / Waiting on others
• @Unfold Work / Worth a second look

The @ is there for a reason: mail apps sort labels alphabetically and offer no way to pin one, so without it this would sit near the bottom of a long list. A section only appears when it has something in it, and a label goes away when the next brief no longer mentions that email, so the list stays as short as your brief is.

This is on from the moment you connect, and one switch in Settings turns it off. The same grouping exists for Outlook mailboxes too: the tag appears as a category on each message, and the view appears as "@Unfold Work" under Search Folders. On your phone, messages show the tag but no folder view.

What we write, and what we never write

Most tools in this category move your mail. They archive it, or file it into folders, or filter it out of your inbox. We do not. Mailbox grouping does two things, on from the moment you connect, and this is the complete list:

• We add a removable tag, a label in Gmail, a category in Outlook. Your mail stays exactly where it is, including in your inbox.
• We add one saved-search view of that tag: a single entry in your mail app that shows the tagged messages where they already live. It holds nothing, and removing it changes nothing about your mail.
• We never move, archive, delete, hide or mark anything as read.
• We only ever create, change or remove tags and that view inside "@Unfold Work". Anything you made yourself is never read, changed or deleted.
• Turning it off removes everything we created, the tags and the view, from wherever you turned it off, and says how many messages were cleaned. Disconnecting your mailbox does the same.
• If your mail provider refuses part of that cleanup, we say so and ask you to retry, rather than report a success we did not verify.
• It uses a permission you already granted when you connected your mailbox; if your account does not carry it, the option is simply not shown. There is no new permission request.
• It is on from the moment you connect, and we say so as you connect. One switch in Settings turns it off. Mailboxes connected before this was the default keep whatever setting they had.

For how we handle the content of your mail, see our Privacy Policy and Your data.