Reading strategies
In Zulip, streams determine who gets a message. Topics tell you what
the message is about. If you are not yet familiar with Zulip's topics,
we recommend first reading about streams and
topics.
This article details a few ways to efficiently read through messages
in Zulip.
Topic by topic
Like your email inbox, for most users, Zulip works best if you read it topic-by-topic.
Finding a topic to read
From Recent topics
Use the Recent topics view to get an overview of all the ongoing
conversations. This view is particularly useful for catching up on
messages sent while you were away.
- Instructions for all platforms
-
Open Recent topics from the left sidebar or by pressing the Esc
key.
-
The filters at the top help you quickly find relevant
conversations. For example, select Participated to narrow to
the topics you have sent messages to.
From the list of streams
In the left sidebar, you can see the streams you are subscribed to, along with
unread message counts for each stream.
- Instructions for all platforms
-
Click on the name of a stream in the left sidebar. You will see a list of the
most recent unread topics in that stream.
-
The initially shown list of topics usually has what you need, but you can
click on "more topics" underneath to see additional topics.
Older topics disappear from the left sidebar, but you can always find them
by clicking “more topics” or by using search.
Reading topics
- Via recent topics
- Via left sidebar
-
Open Recent topics from the left sidebar or by pressing the Esc
key.
-
Click on the name of a topic in the Topic column.
-
Read the topic, scrolling down with the mouse or by pressing Fn
+ ↓
.
-
If the topic is not of interest, you can
mark all messages as read or do so by jumping
to the end using the End
key.
-
You can then click on another topic in the left sidebar, use the n
key to go to the
next unread topic, or go back to the Recent topics view.
-
Click on the name of a stream in the left sidebar. You will see a list of the
most recent unread topics in that stream.
-
Click on a topic in the left sidebar.
-
Read the topic, scrolling down with the mouse or by pressing Fn
+ ↓
.
-
If the topic is not of interest, you can
mark all messages as read or do so by jumping
to the end using the End
key.
-
Click on the next topic in the left sidebar, or use the n
key to go to the
next unread topic.
-
To go to older unread topics, use the n
key or click "more topics" to view.
Stream view
Sometimes it's useful to scroll through all the messages in a stream,
especially in situations where you just want a general idea of what's going
on.
-
Click on a stream name in the left sidebar, and scroll using your mouse,
the arrow keys, End
, or page up/down.
-
Click on a topic to narrow to messages from that topic.
You can also search for a stream by clicking on STREAMS in the
left sidebar, or using the q
keyboard
shortcut.
All messages
If you're all caught up, it can be useful to have a single place to keep
track of all messages coming in.
-
Click on All messages in the upper left, or hit a
.
-
You can use s
(narrow to stream) or S
(narrow to topic) to zoom in,
and a
to get back to All messages.
Starring messages for later
You can star messages that you've seen and would
like to reply to later.
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