Thread
A thread is the email-shaped conversation: the messages of one exchange, joined by mail's own threading references rather than by their subject line, held as one canonical record with its own triage state. Every thread is a conversation; not every conversation is a thread.
What joins messages into one#
Mail carries references from a reply back to what it answers, and that chain is what builds a thread. Two consequences follow, and both look like faults the first time you meet them.
- A changed subject does not necessarily split a thread
- If the reply still references the message it answers, it stays where it belongs. That is usually what you want: people rename subjects mid-exchange.
- A reused subject does not join one
- Somebody writing a fresh message with an old subject line starts a new exchange, because nothing links it to the previous one. A thread is a chain of references, not a matching string.
- A forward is a new chain
- Forwarding to a third party begins its own exchange with its own participants, and it does not merge back.
Threads exist twice in the database on purpose. What a provider adapter stored sits in the provider's own shape; the canonical thread and its messages are what the engine and the screens read, and a bridge copies between them. The engine never reads the provider's tables, which is why connecting a different mail provider changes nothing about how a thread behaves.
The state a thread carries#
| Field | Set by | What reads it |
|---|---|---|
| Priority | You, or triage | The engine, when it chooses what to work on next |
| Starred | You | The screens and your saved filters |
| Deleted | You | The lists; the accountability trail is unaffected |
The first row is the one worth acting on. Priority is not a colour — correcting it changes what Connect picks up next, so re-prioritising a thread you care about is a working instruction rather than a personal bookmark. Calls carry the same three fields, which is what lets one queue mix mail and telephony without a second vocabulary.
Thread against its neighbours#
- A conversation
- The general word, across every channel. Reach for *thread* only when the mail-specific joining rules are the point; otherwise say conversation and stay channel-neutral.
- A provider's own thread identifier
- Gmail and Graph each keep their own grouping. Connect stores what the adapter gave it and works from the canonical record, so an identifier you see in a provider's interface is not the identifier Connect works with.
- A relationship
- Threads end. A relationship does not: it holds every exchange with a person across channels and years, and it is the right place to look for context a single thread cannot have.
- A mailbox
- The address the thread arrived at. One mailbox holds many threads, and its role and signature shape how replies on them read.
Questions#
Why did a reply start a new thread instead of continuing mine?
Almost always because the sender composed a fresh message rather than replying, so nothing referenced the original. A matching subject line does not join two exchanges.
Does deleting a thread delete the messages?
It removes it from the working lists. The record of what Connect decided and did remains in the audit trail, which is deliberately not a list you tidy.
Can two mailboxes share a thread?
A thread belongs to the endpoint it arrived at. Two addresses on the same exchange produce two records, and the person is what joins the history together.