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Navigation and unread counts

Unread messages

Zulip is carefully designed to automatically track which messages you've read to produce the ideal reading experience, where you can always start reading where you left off:

  • Messages are automatically marked as read only when you're likely to have actually read them.

  • When you open a view in Zulip, it takes you to the first unread message in that view, if any.

These goals are achieved through the following behaviors:

  • Unread counts will be displayed on the left sidebar, next to the stream/topic name. In the main view, unread messages will have a dark line along their left side, which will fade as the message gets marked as read.

  • Essentially, Zulip will consider a message read when the message is selected (the blue cursor box passes over it). Any message which is selected or above a message which is selected will be marked as read.

  • Whenever you're in a view where the whitespace at the bottom of that view is visible, Zulip marks all the messages in that view as read.

    • If you're in a longer view where the bottom whitespace isn't visible, Zulip marks messages as read as you scroll past them.
    • If you're navigating with the keyboard, a message is marked as read when the blue cursor box that you are controlling passes over it.
    • If you're navigating with the mouse, Zulip automatically advances the blue cursor box to the next message as you approach the top of the screen when you're scrolling through the feed. This results in messages being marked as read as they disappear from your view while scrolling.

  • When a user has been off Zulip for several days and has hundreds of unread messages, they will be prompted for whether they want to mark all their unread messages as read.

Zulip will always take you to the place you left off (your first unread message) to make it more easy for you to catch up with all the discussions that happened while you were away from your computer.

Here is a more detailed overview of the navigation behavior:

  • When you click on a topic's name or the recipient list at the top of a group of messages, Zulip will narrow you to that conversation and Zulip will select the message you were previously focused on in that conversation.

  • If you narrow into a conversation by using the left sidebar or the search box, Zulip will instead select the first unread message matching that narrow, or if there are none, the most recent message matching that narrow.

  • When you narrow to the All messages view, you will automatically be taken to the same message that was selected in that view before you narrowed. If you read new messages in your previous narrow, you will be fast-forwarded to the first unread message in the All messages view.

  • When you open a new browser window or tab to the All messages view, Zulip will select the lowest message in that view, which is usually just before the first unread message.

  • When you load a new browser tab or window to a narrowed view, Zulip will exhibit behavior similar to when you narrow to that view after loading the browser window to your All messages view.