[Inbox] Canvas Inbox Needs Folders

[VHDL2STA]

Sent and received emails often have common themes and so for improved efficiency and productivity these emails should be organized into email folders with self-documenting titles. 

Currently the Canvas messaging utility ("Inbox") does not allow users to create organizational folders. 

Every email utility that I have worked with, including the Blackboard mail utility, allows users to create folders. Hopefully Canvas will one day in the near future allow its users to create folders in their email.

This email folder feature request is closely tied to the feature request that I recently made in which I requested that each Canvas course have its own "Inbox" in its unique Course Navigation Panel. If the Canvas "Inbox" remains in the Global Navigation Field then the self documenting labels for  folders would have to include the course title and section number of the Canvas course (or the course's Canvas nickname).

[Stef_retired]

Thanks for sharing this idea, @VHDL2STA . We've moved it forward for broader discussion after making a few slight edits to reflect the difference between the Canvas Inbox ("messages") and "email"; Canvas does not have email, nor does it provide an email client or email app.

[rebecca_asker]

Being able to create folders in the inbox would be very helpful! All our student communication goes through the inbox, so there are a lot of messages to keep track of. 

[Piotter]

Not only folders, but overall making the system more like other email services. Features like Shift+Left Click to select multiple messages would also make the system significantly easier to use.

[VHDL2STA]

Yes I agree with you. Lack of Folder capability is just one of the many current weaknesses of the Canvas email environment.

In another post I listed additional basic emailing features that the Canvas email environment does not have.

I also stated in a previous post that the current Canvas email environment resembles the early email utilities from the late sixties (1969 to be precise as per Google). But we are living in the year 2022 and we are accustomed to using folders, different fonts and user friendly methods to insert math symbols, pictures, etc into the body of our emails. Unfortunately Canvas email does not have these user friendly capabilities.

Yes Canvas R&D has given us many wonderful ways to communicate with our students (even videos launched from gradable assignments) to inform our students that they missed a well-defined due date for a gradable activity. But lets be honest. College students know that they missed a well-defined due date. College students do not need to be given a grade three hand holding treatment of an audio or a verbal reminder. Canvas R&D time should be better spent working on the Canvas email environment so that this utility will be on par with modern word processors and other LMSes (like Blackboard). This is 2022. This is not 1969.