I agree that modest is more or less "proof of concept", but please read manual: On page 70
"Press and hold the shift key, and use the arrow keys to
select text."

.edit
Seems that manual is not entirely correct. It should say that use stylus or finger while holding shift to select text.

Could you post the link of the Modest manual, please !?

Maybe there is also a shortcut for "mark all messages read" !?

Which only works if you are forwarding or replying (or creating, someplace with a cursor and text input)... as econan said. You can't copy from an e-mail that you are reading.

What? I can mark text in my messages when I´m reading them. After that it´s just matter of ctrl-c and ctrl-v as usual.

It´s even in N900 manual.

.edit
And also in Wiki
http://wiki.maemo.org/N900_shortcuts...#E-mail_client

Okay, you're right but you gave partially wrong instructions.

It works if you hold shift and use finger/stylus to select text. Shift + arrow does not do anything (for me). Thanks for the tip.

I've had all those problems that have been posted here. In my case the solution has been to use a Nokia Messaging account in order to integrate my mails accounts. I've setted those in my N900 and now it seems other!! Mail faster, posiblity of choosing hours for sync and few more features has been added to my device!!.

It may seems strange but I would say that all my phone performance has been improved, not only the mail cient!!

The unique problem that I've found with Nokia Messaging is that mail widget only show the number of unread messages and no longer shows the subjects in messages.

@davogr
Nokia Messaging is better experience and you can use IMAP Idle, but in my country I have to pay monthly fee to use this service. Even if I access my company run mail server. Which is a shame.

In my country my NM account says "In trial period"...I guess Nokia Messaging will be paying in short and I go back to my slow and heavy mail client...Really I don`t understand not, really is a shame. I'm wondering...somebody will pay for this when you've got free mail accounts??I hope not...

Every time I see this thread pop up I usually have restraints
and fetters in place, but this time I am off my meds
and the attendants were away, so -


How bad is the email client...

There needs to be a new word in the dictionary.
Modest is not just bad, it goes beyond the word 'bad'
by several orders of magnitude.

Unsatisfactory - not even in the same league
Atrocity - usually reserved for physical injury,
and certainly inadequate for the mental torment Modest doles out
Despicable - kinda lame.
Ridiculous - Modest fraks up a lot more seriously than that.

The imagination, the thesaurus and even Ambrose Bierce
have no words to describe how fundamentally flawed the
email client shipped with the n900 truly is.

Use claws-mail if you are not masochistic.

Another weird shortcoming is that there is no way to collapse folder tree... which can be annoying if you have a huge folder hierarchy on your imap server.

Due to this, and due to the slowness logging in, I looked for alternatives... and found:

claws-mail

It's UI is a little bit rough, and takes some time getting accustomed to it, but it has everything that the built-in mail hasn't: fast log-in, collapsible IMAP folders, light on the CPU, etc. And the non-standard scrolling is actually more convenient (faster) than the standard way.

So for those who prefer function over appearance, here is your solution.