Guide
Getting started
Sign in, find the workspace, and know where mail, projects, and settings live.
What this guide covers
Getting started is the first hour in Outdraft: sign in, recognize the workspace, and know where personal mail, Nests, projects, and account settings live. The full tours continue in AI, Mail, Nests, and Projects.
Sign in
Open Outdraft and sign in with the email and password on your account. If you turned on two-factor authentication, you’ll enter a code from your authenticator app before the workspace opens. Until that step succeeds, mail and projects stay closed.
Use your Backup Email if you need to reset a password. We recommend enabling two-factor authentication for any account that holds mail you care about — you can do that later in Settings. How factors and sessions work is described in Security; identity and ownership are in Accounts.
The workspace
Once you’re in, the layout stays consistent: a sidebar for where you are, and a main area for the list or conversation you’re working in. You don’t need every label on day one — just which region to open.
Mail
Under Contact — your personal mail: Inbox, Sent, Scheduled, Drafts, Search, Archive, and Deleted. Start here for messages addressed to you.
Nests
Under Contact — shared spaces for mail you and invited people choose to bring together. Library holds your Nests; Invites holds invitations.
Projects
Your projects you own, and Shared with you for invitations. Open an organization or team when the work isn’t only personal.
Analytics
Under Insights — usage against your plan and subscription details when you need them. Not where day-to-day mail lives.
Organizations you were invited to appear under Shared with you, separate from projects you own. For a fuller map of every sidebar place, see App structure.
Your first few minutes
You don’t have to configure everything before you read mail. A calm first pass looks like this.
- 01
Land in Inbox
After a successful sign-in you’re in the workspace. Personal mail waits in Inbox; unread counts show what still needs a look.
- 02
Glance at the sidebar
Contact holds Mail and Nests. Below that, Your projects and Shared with you. Insights → Analytics sits apart from composing and reading.
- 03
Open Settings when you need the account
Profile, password, Backup Email, and two-factor authentication live in Settings — outside the mail sidebar, still inside the signed-in product.
Personal mail vs projects
If a thread is for you alone, stay in Mail. If it belongs to an organization or team, open that space under Projects to read it — or pick the same space in compose when you write. Mixing those up is the usual first-week confusion — scopes exist so personal and shared work don’t pile into one inbox. The model is explained in Scopes; day-to-day moves are in the Mail and Projects guides.
Before you go deeper
Confirm your Backup Email is current, and consider two-factor authentication if you haven’t already. Then pick the guide that matches what you’re trying to do next — reading and sending, or joining and running project spaces.
Read next
Continue with Mail or Projects.