I too use to be confused until I leaned these three things.
- To see your mailbox like you might expect with an e-mail reader
a. Click on you user icon in the upper right
b. Click on the envelope
c. Click on the envelope a second time (It was the second click that I did not realize was needed)
This will reveal the classic e-mail app buttons such as
1. New Message - For creating a new personal message (PM)
2. Inbox - Where your received personal messages are held
3. Sent - Personal messages that you have sent. Look here if you sent something and did not yet get a reply.
4. Archive - I have not used this yet so can not elaborate.
- Use the theme Iconified Header Links to add the inbox to the header links, e.g.
To add this component theme requires admin access. The settings are
Header links: Personal inboxes,inbox,https://<site>/my/messages,vdm,self
svg icons: inbox
You will need to replace <site> with your specific site. For Discourse forum <site> would be meta.discourse.org and the full URL would be https://meta.discourse.org/my/messages.
Also note that the use of my instead of a specific user like me u/EricGT in the links above. It is a nice trick to remember when giving specific URLs to the site members.
- Using a direct URL to the messages, https://<site>/my/messages