Compose: sending mail

The Compose screen is where you write and send messages. The Compose screen is divided into two sections:

Writing messages

  1. On the menu bar, click Compose (or Reply or Forward).
  2. In the header section, enter the addressing information. By default, the headers displayed are the To, Cc, and Subject fields. For information on displaying more header fields, see Headers.
  3. To enter rich-text click on Rich Text to the right of the Subject header. Click Plain Text to toggle this back to plain text.
  4. In the message section, enter your message text. If you are entering Rich Text, a formatting toolbar at the top of the message section allows you to apply rich-text formatting to message text. You can also insert links and graphics using the formatting toolbar.
  5. If desired, you can mark your message with a priority level. On the menu bar, point to Priority, and then select the level that you want for this message.


Including attachments

  1. On the menu bar, click Attach File.
  2. Enter the path and file name for the file that you want to attach, or click Browse to browse for the file and select it.


Sending, canceling, and saving drafts

To send mail

To cancel an editing session

  1. On the menu bar, click Cancel, or click any item in the left pane, such as your Inbox.
  2. Click Discard to confirm. The Compose screen closes and your Inbox appears.

To save a draft of a message

Note:

If you open a previously saved draft, make more changes, and then cancel the editing session and discard changes, the entire draft is deleted, not just the most recent changes.


Resuming drafts

To resume editing a draft message that you previously saved go to the Drafts folder by clicking on Drafts in the left pane. Find the message you want to resume in the list and click on its Subject to resume composing.

Headers

The header section is where you enter addressing information. By default, the header displays the To, Cc, and Subject fields.

To display all headers

To display only the default headers

Header fields

The following header fields are available:

Automatic saves

Alpine saves a draft every 5 minutes, overwriting the draft each time, so that only the most recent saved version is preserved.