# How the inbox is sorted

Your turn shows the newest first, with anything overdue or at risk on top. Up for grabs shows whoever has waited longest first. Each list has a sort menu, and Rookery remembers your choice.

Getting started · Updated October 17, 2026 · https://userookery.com/help/sort-the-inbox/

Every list in the inbox goes by [priority](https://userookery.com/help/priority/) first: Urgent, then High, then Normal, then Low. Inside each priority, the list's sort decides the order. Anything Rookery flags as possible phishing always sits at the very top, so you see the warning before you reply.

## The sorts

- **Newest:** the newest mail first, as most email apps do. Anything **Overdue**, then **At risk**, sits in a small band at the top ("Overdue · 2", "At risk · 1"), so a reply you owe never hides under new mail. Under them, **Everything else**.
- **Waited longest:** whoever has waited longest first, so the people who have waited longest are served first. Each row says how long, like **waiting 3h**.
- **Due soonest:** the soonest [reply target](https://userookery.com/help/reply-targets/) first, overdue ones before them, and conversations with no due time after. Then whoever has waited longest.

## Each list's own sort

- **Your turn**, **With teammates**, **Waiting on them** and **With Rookery** start at **Newest**.
- **Up for grabs** is the team's queue, and starts at **Waited longest**. That's true for an inbox's Up for grabs too, and for mail handed to a [group](https://userookery.com/help/groups/).
- In a [private inbox](https://userookery.com/help/private-inbox/) there are no reply targets, so Newest is simply by priority, then newest first.

**With Rookery** keeps its sections (Stuck first), and sorts inside each. **Snoozed** is always the soonest to wake first, and **Done** the newest first.

## Change the sort

1. Above a list, click its sort, like **Newest first**. Or press `⇧S` to open the sort of the list you're on.
2. Pick **Newest**, **Waited longest** or **Due soonest**. The list changes at once.

Rookery remembers your choice for that list, on every device you use. It's yours alone: a teammate's lists keep their own sorts. **Done** moves on to the next row in the order you see.

## How long they've waited

In a list sorted by **Waited longest**, each row says how long since their email came in: **waiting 25m**, **waiting 3h**, **waiting 2d**. In a team inbox it counts working time, the same [business hours](https://userookery.com/help/reply-targets/#how-the-clock-counts) as reply targets: mail that comes in on Friday evening has waited 2 hours by 11:00 on Monday, not a whole weekend. A working day is the inbox's longest open day. Hover over it, or use a screen reader, to hear it in full: "Waiting 3 working hours".

## For developers

The API's `list_conversations` takes the same sorts as `sort`: `newest`, `waited` or `due`. See the [API reference](https://userookery.com/developers/reference/#list_conversations).