The first letter

Folio has no password field, no sign-up form in the usual sense, and no onboarding checklist you have to clear before you can see your inbox. It asks, instead, for one of the addresses you already check. A link arrives there. You click it. You are in.

§ The first run, in three moves

• ·Sign in. Request a magic link at /login and click it — no password, no sign-up form to clear.
• ·Bind a domain. If you own one, the next chapter prints the exact MX, SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records; most domains finish in under ten minutes.
• ·Send the first reply. Open any letter and reply — Folio auto-picks the From from the address it was sent to. Writing a reply covers the editor.

§ Requesting the link

At /login you'll find a single field with an understated underline. Type any address you own — gmail.com, your own domain, an alias. We don't care which one; the address is the name you want this account to answer to.

• ·The link is valid for fifteen minutes and single-use.
• ·If it doesn't arrive, check spam; if it still doesn't, request another (the previous one quietly expires).
• ·The address you sign in with becomes your first identity — the From on your first reply. Add more in the next chapter.

§ What the inbox looks like

Letters arrive at the top. There is a narrow coloured stripe down the left of every row — that stripe is the domain the letter was sent to, not the domain it was sent from. On the first day you'll see only one colour. By week two, most people are at three or four.

The stripe is the whole trick. Once you've seen it, nothing else looks quite right.

§ What to read next

If you own a domain, the second chapter walks through binding it. If you only ever plan to use the address you signed in with, skip to writing a reply.