Composing Mail

Opening a Compose Window

Compose Panes

Press F6 to cycle between the address fields (To, Cc, Bcc), the subject, and the message body. You can also jump directly to a field:

Address Autocomplete

Start typing a name or address in To, Cc, or Bcc. QuickMail searches your address book and recent contacts. Arrow down to choose a suggestion; press Enter or Tab to accept. Press Escape to dismiss without accepting.

Editing Modes

Every compose window offers three modes, switchable at any time with Ctrl+Shift+1/2/3 or the View menu:

Switching from a rich mode to Plain Text asks for confirmation because formatting would be lost.

Messages composed in Markdown or HTML are sent with both an HTML part and a plain text part.

Formatting (Markdown and HTML Modes)

Nested lists: In a list, press Tab to indent an item (creating a sub-list); press Shift+Tab to dedent.

Checking Formatting (HTML Mode)

• Ctrl+T — announces a one-line summary: “Heading 2. Bold on, Italic off, Underline off.”
• Ctrl+Shift+T — opens a small window listing the same details one per row. Arrow through them; press Escape or Enter to close.

Preview (Markdown and HTML Modes)

Press F8 to open a rendered preview in a separate window. The preview is fully focusable, so you can browse the formatted output exactly as a recipient would. Links open in your default browser. Press Escape or Ctrl+W to close the preview.

Check Spelling (Full Dialog)

Press F7 (or choose Tools → Check Spelling) to review the whole message in the classic spelling dialog. The check covers the message body first, then the subject line, and finishes with a confirmation that reports how many words were changed.

For each word that is not in the dictionary, the Spelling window shows the word in the line where it appears, a list of suggestions, and a “Change to” box pre-filled with the top suggestion. A screen reader announces “Not in dictionary:” followed by the word, and focus lands on the suggestions list with the first suggestion selected so it is spoken automatically. Arrow through the list to hear other choices — the highlighted suggestion fills the Change to box — or type your own correction.

Words you add to the dictionary are stored in custom.lex in your QuickMail profile folder and apply everywhere spell checking runs, permanently. To remove a word, edit that file in a text editor while QuickMail is closed (one word per line). Ignore All lasts only for the current check.

The message stays visible and editable behind the Spelling window, with the current word selected, so you can always see the correction in place.

Inline Spell Check

Changed keys: inline navigation was previously F7 / Shift+F7. F7 now opens the Check Spelling dialog, matching the binding word processors have used for decades. If you had customized these shortcuts, your bindings are unchanged; to restore the old behavior, reassign them in the keyboard customizations dialog.

Inline navigation wraps around the message so it always finds misspellings wherever the cursor starts.

When a screen reader is active, QuickMail announces each misspelling along with up to three suggestions. By default, each suggestion is numbered — for example: “Misspelling: teh. 1: the, 2: then, 3: them.” Press Alt+1, Alt+2, or Alt+3 to replace the misspelled word with that numbered suggestion without leaving the compose area.

Control announcement behavior in Settings → Screen Reader Announcements:

• Announce spelling suggestions — turn off to hear only the misspelled word without suggestions.
• Spelling Suggestions Verbosity — choose Numbers with suggestions (default) to hear “1: the, 2: then” so Alt+1/2/3 maps directly to what is spoken, or Just suggestions to hear “the, then, them” without numbers.

Attachments

Attach files with Ctrl+Shift+A in the compose window, by pasting files from the clipboard (Ctrl+V), or by dragging and dropping them onto the window. A screen reader announces how many files were attached.

Message Templates

Save a message you write often — a standard reply, a form response — as a reusable template.

• Save as Template (command palette) saves the current subject and body as a new template, titled from the subject line (or “Untitled” if the subject is empty).
• Insert Template… (command palette) opens a search-and-select picker: type to filter by title, arrow to a template, and press Insert or Enter to add its subject (if the Subject field is empty) and body into the message you are composing.

Templates can include {sender}, {date}, and {time} placeholders, which are replaced with your display name and today’s date and time when the template is inserted. Templates are plain text; in HTML mode, only the text is inserted.

Checking Addresses

Press Ctrl+K to check every address in the To, Cc, and Bcc fields. QuickMail looks up any bare name against your address book — if exactly one contact matches, it fills in that contact’s address automatically. Addresses that are not valid and cannot be resolved are flagged as invalid. A screen reader announces how many addresses were resolved and how many are invalid.

Sending

Auto-Save Drafts

QuickMail saves your compose as a draft automatically every 2 minutes (on by default). A quiet status line in the compose window shows “Auto-saved 3:42 PM” after each save — no announcement interrupts your writing. If a save fails, it is announced once. You can check the last auto-save time from the command palette: Ctrl+Shift+P → Announce Last Auto-Save.

Control auto-save in Settings → General → Composing: turn it off, change the interval (30 seconds to 10 minutes), and set the default compose mode for new messages.

Forwarding with Attachments

When forwarding a message that has attachments, QuickMail opens an Include Attachments dialog before downloading. All attachments are checked by default. Arrow between files and press Space to toggle individual ones. Press Tab to reach Forward (include checked files) or Cancel.