OptMsg v1.1.4 is all about reading and replying. You can now answer calendar invites right from your inbox, watch short how-to videos without leaving the app, and enjoy email in the full design its sender intended. We’ve also polished dozens of everyday moments to make getting through your inbox faster and smoother. Here’s what’s new.
Calendar invites, built in
OptMsg now understands invites from Google Calendar, Outlook and Apple Calendar.
- Spot an invite in your inbox. OptMsg marks messages that carry a calendar invite in the message list, so they stand out at a glance.
- See the details on a card. Then, when you open an invite, you see the event’s details on a clear, readable card.
- Reply from OptMsg. Accept, decline or answer maybe without leaving your inbox. We built replies to work with Google Calendar, Outlook and Apple Calendar.
- Add it to your calendar. Invites open in your device’s calendar. On iPhone and iPad, Add to Calendar opens Apple’s own Add Event screen.
How-to videos, inside the app
- A new How-to’s page in the Help Center. Watch short videos on getting the most out of OptMsg without leaving the app.
- Made for your screen. On a phone held upright, videos play in a portrait version where one is available.
- Up to date. New guides can appear at any time, with no app update needed.
Know when a message stayed inside OptMsg
- A blue shield for messages that stayed inside OptMsg. When the sender and every recipient are on OptMsg, a blue shield appears at the start of the message header. One simple signal, nothing to learn.
- Sender names in blue, too. In addition, when a message stayed inside OptMsg, the sender’s name appears in blue alongside the shield.
Email that looks the way it was designed
We studied how real-world email is designed to look and refined how OptMsg displays it.
- Dark mode that respects the design. Header bars, button colors and backgrounds keep the sender’s look in dark mode, and buttons look cleaner.
- Layouts that hold their shape. Logos keep their proportions, columns keep their widths, and wide newsletters fit neatly on Android screens.
- Richer images. Also, banner images and images embedded in a message now display in full.
- A rebuilt display engine for incoming email. A new, more careful way of preparing email for display that also does a better job of keeping links and layouts intact.
Reading and your inbox
- Smarter read status. With the reading pane on, OptMsg marks a message read once you’ve had it open for a few seconds, so opening a folder leaves your newest mail unread until you look at it.
- Mark as Unread that stays put. A message you mark unread stays unread until you’re ready.
- A steadier Unread filter. The filter remembers your choice when you come back to a folder, and on phones the Unread list keeps up with what you’ve just read.
- Precise folder badges. On the web, Archive and Trash show their unread counts.
- Search that starts fresh. Leaving a screen clears its search, while coming back from a message you opened from the results keeps your place. The search bar now clearly highlights selected text, too.
- Settings on the web. The Subscription page in Settings loads quickly and reliably on the web.
Writing and replying
- Familiar reply headers. The quoted message opens with “On <date>, <sender> wrote:”, which reads naturally for recipients on any mail app.
- Reply comes first. Reply is now listed before Reply All, so the option you want most is the first one under your thumb.
- Faster recipient picking. The top suggestion is highlighted as you type, and Enter, Tab or a comma adds it.
- Tidier quoted emails. Also, replies to newsletter-style emails keep a clean, borderless layout.
- Dependable replies on the web. Reply and Forward open with the full message, even in a browser tab that has been open for a long time.
Signing up and signing in
- Smoother sign-up on iPhone. Signing up in Safari on an iPhone keeps a steady, comfortable view as you move between fields.
- Pick up where you left off. If sign-up is interrupted part-way, you can finish it or start fresh.
- Smoother sign-in. As a result, signing in right after creating your account is quicker and more dependable.
Mail reliability
- More resilient delivery. We strengthened how incoming mail is processed, so your mail keeps flowing even when an unusual message arrives.
- Attachments that keep their identity. Attachments that share a file name each stay separate, and forwarding a message leaves the original recipient’s copy untouched.
Accessibility
- Filter your mail with a keyboard or screen reader. The mail-list filter menu works with a keyboard and is announced by screen readers on the web.
- Buttons that say what they do. The Reply and Add Contact buttons, the sign-up link, the sign-up consent checkboxes and the notifications banner now have clear names for screen readers.
- Easier to tap, easier to read. Finally, the upgrade button is a bigger target on phones, and contact names follow your device’s text-size setting.
Under the hood in OptMsg v1.1.4
Alongside the above, OptMsg v1.1.4 brings a major framework upgrade on our servers, database groundwork for the years ahead, richer crash reporting from the iPhone app, and better tools for our support team. You won’t see these directly, but they’re the foundation that lets us keep improving OptMsg quickly and safely.
Getting OptMsg v1.1.4
OptMsg is on the App Store and Google Play, and on the web at mail.optmsg.com. Missed the last release? Here is what changed in OptMsg v1.1.3.
As always, we’d love to hear from you. Several of the improvements above started as a customer suggestion.
