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User Guide

Browsing the Archive

Front Page

The front page shows all available mailing list domains and their lists with message counts. Click a domain to expand, then click a list name to view its archive.

List View

Once you select a list, you see the current month's emails. The sidebar shows:

  • Calendar — click any month to browse historical archives
  • Participants — top contributors for the selected period
  • Word Cloud — common terms (if enabled by the administrator)

Display Modes

Three display modes are available (toggle in the header):

Mode Description
Threaded Groups emails by conversation thread. Click a thread to expand.
Flat Shows all emails in chronological order.
Tree Hierarchical indented view showing reply relationships.

Reading an Email

Click any email subject to open it. The view shows:

  • Full message body (with quoted text collapsed by default)
  • Sender, date, and list information
  • Attachments (downloadable)
  • Navigation: "Find parent email" link, permalink

Searching

Use the search box at the top of any page. Supports:

  • Free text: budget meeting
  • Required terms: +budget
  • Excluded terms: -spam
  • Exact phrases: "quarterly review"

For full search syntax including date ranges and header filters, see search.md.

Authentication

Logging In

Click the profile icon (top right) to log in via OAuth. Available providers depend on the deployment (commonly Google, GitHub, or a custom provider like ASF OAuth).

What Login Enables

Feature Anonymous Logged In (authoritative) Admin
Browse public lists ✓ ✓ ✓
Browse private lists ✗ ✓ ✓
Compose replies ✗ ✓ ✓
Management console ✗ ✗ ✓

"Authoritative" means the OAuth provider is listed in the server's authoritative_domains configuration.

Logging Out

Click the profile icon again and select "Log out". Your session cookie is invalidated.

Composing Replies

When logged in via an authoritative OAuth provider:

  1. Open an email you want to reply to
  2. Click the Reply button below the message
  3. Compose your reply in the text box
  4. Click Send

Restrictions:

  • You can only reply to lists whose domain matches the server's sender_domains configuration
  • The email is sent from your OAuth-verified email address
  • The In-Reply-To and References headers are set automatically

Permalinks

Every email has a stable permalink URL of the form:

https://your-instance/thread/{permalink_id}

Use the "Permalink" link in the email view to copy it. These URLs are stable and suitable for sharing.

Note: If an email requires authentication (private list), visitors who are not logged in will see an error. They must log in first via the profile icon.

Mbox Download

You can download a month's archive in mbox format by clicking the download icon in the list view header. This produces a standard mbox file suitable for import into other mail clients or tools.