# Discourse messaging guide for new users

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-messaging-guide-for-new-users/154382
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [June 10, 2020, 6:38am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-messaging-guide-for-new-users/154382 "2020-06-10T06:38:23Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 4

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### Author: ![EricGT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f1d935/32.png) [@EricGT](https://meta.discourse.org/u/EricGT)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2020, 9:33am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-messaging-guide-for-new-users/154382/4 "2020-06-10T09:33:12Z")

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I too use to be confused until I leaned these three things.

* * *

1. To see your mailbox like you might expect with an e-mail reader

a. Click on you user icon in the upper right

![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/3X/d/f/dfbd173763acfd0009fb50c8e33c4146dc0a41ab.png)  
b. Click on the envelope  
 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/3X/9/4/943ab116e37b961cbc4969d58da79b3bf1b273a6.png)  
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.

 ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/3X/5/4/543c64bd644d4e8103530844d28a7bbdf5c96028.png)

* * *

1. Use the theme [Iconified Header Links](https://meta.discourse.org/t/iconified-header-links/86307) to add the inbox to the header links, e.g.

![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/3X/c/e/ceab0486d24867c126cd1cf8edfb21e95ec44627.png)

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 [Discourse Meta - The Official Support Forum for Discourse](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.

* * *

1. Using a direct URL to the messages, https://\<site\>/my/messages

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