I increasingly find I am using Windows Mail  with NVDA for the vast bulk of my email usage.

I have not installed the Windows 10 essentials addon as I found I was having problems with this and Mail seems to work even faster without  it.

There are a few oddities bukt they are workd around and I do the work arounds now without conscious thought but with muscle memory.

I find it is easily the fasterst and most efficient email system with NVDA. Certainly is is vastly snappier and efficient compared to my Outlook 2010 which although it undeniably has more features but is far more sluggish.

I do not use rules and have not investigated whether these are  possible with Windows Mail. I suspect not.

Windows Mail appears to be able to pull in at least some of your Outlook contacts automatically.

Although there is no formal spell checking that I know of there is by default in Mail automatic typing spelling  correction.

Some of the oddities.

Firstly if you reply to an email NVDA will not  immediately focus in the edit field ready for typing. Alt tabbing away and alt tabbing back will restore focus in the edit field ready for you to start typing.

Secondly Mail will occasionally shift focus from the message list to the navigation Bar with NVDA. Shift tab every time you hear Navigation and you will be placed straight back in the message list.

Thirdly you will occasionallly lose focus from the message list and hear the message loading as new messatges are pulled down. Again shift tabbing once will return you straight back to the message list.

In practice this lis less of a hassle than it sounds – I do it without thinking now.

If you get emails coming in whilst you are reviewing your message list your focus on a particular email in the list may slip and when you pres enter you may open the wrong email.  – mormally one just below the one you intended. Pressing escape to go back to the message list and re-selecting the desired email normally fixes this.

However I often do not   bother to open emails.

The Message llist works with a preview feature which I really like as I can often delete short  list emails without having to open them.

Placing attachments in a Windows Mail email is really easy. Go to file explorer, copy the file or files want to attach, open a new email and then press control V to paste in the files as attachments.

Virtually all the traditional Outlook  keyboard shortcuts work.

So control Y to bring up the folder list.

Control enter to send an email.

Control N for new email.

Control R for reply etc etc.

Pressing delete key in message list will delete an email – doing the same in the reading pane will also delete the message.

Occasionally windows Mail will not respond at all with NVDA. Closing the program and restarting it normally fixes this immediately. As the program is so fast at loading this does not concern me overmuch.

Finally the threading feature is automatic, not customisable as far as I am aware,  and takes a little  getting used to. Threads automatically open when you cursor down the message list. To collapse  any thread you simply focus on any message in the thread and press left arrow twice. When you hear collapsed you can also then press the delete key to delete the whole thread.

So in summary if you want a highly customisable  email program with lost of features mail is probably not for you.

If you want fast quick simple review of emails  I personally no of no combination on any platform which works as well as NVDA and Mail.

David Griffith

My Blind Access and Guide dog Blog
http://dgriffithblog.wordpress.com/
My Blind hammer Blog
https://www.westhamtillidie.com/authors/blind-hammer/posts

hi

I have two problems with nvda 2017.4RC1. first, it seems like mozilla

thunderbird beta2 is unstable and is crashing. I went back to

thunderbird 52.4 i even uninstalled and reinstalled thunderbird and it

still crashes and is sluggish when writing emails and sometimes now when

reading emails. so I have a question. is the mail app in windows10

accessible? is it fast and responsive? if so I will get rid of

thunderbird and use the windows10 mail app or another alternative you

recommend. yes I have the app essentials addon installed. and my win10

home is all up to date. my next question is in google chrome on the

santander bank login website just google search santander bank login.

the login is a clickable elemtn. it brings up a dialog box that seems to

work in firefox but i can't seem to get to this dialog box in chrome.

can someone check that out with the latest chrome?

thanks

Josh