Transcript: QuickMail's address book, with Windows Narrator

Times are positions in QuickMail-address-tour-v1.mp3; a demo's time is where its audio starts, after the chime.

Demo lines marked (heard) are automatic speech recognition of what Narrator said, with misheard names corrected by hand against the demo data. Lines marked (logged) are the text the screen reader sent to its voice, from its own log; a following key can cut an utterance short, so listen to those demos too.

• Download QuickMail's address book, with Windows Narrator (MP3, 27 MB)
• Back to the tour on the audio tours page

Welcome (0:00)

Michael: Welcome back to QuickMail, the free email program for Windows that was built screen reader first. I'm Michael.

Maya: And I'm Maya. Last time we took the whole tour. This time we're going deep on one thing: addresses. The address book, saving every address from a message in one go, groups, adding people to groups and taking them out again, and how all of that comes together when you write a message.

Michael: Same ground rules as before. We're AI voices, but every demo you'll hear is the real program, running on a Windows test machine, with Windows Narrator reading it in the Microsoft Zira voice. A script pressed the keys, and we recorded exactly what Narrator said.

Maya: Afterwards we added a soft click for each key press and a chime around each demo, evened out the volume, shortened long pauses, and cut the setup keys from the start of each one. Narrator's words weren't changed.

Michael: And the test machine is offline. It has a work account and a personal account, but their mail servers don't exist, so QuickMail is working from the mail and contacts it keeps on the computer. For addresses, that makes no difference at all. The address book lives on your machine.

Opening the address book (1:15)

Maya: Let's open it. The key is control shift B, from the main window or from a message you're writing. It's also on the Tools menu. Focus lands in a search box, so you can start typing a name straight away. But first, let's just look around. We'll tab to the list and arrow down a few names.

[Demo, 1:34, heard] address book window search contacts edit filter all accounts button cap f contacts list view Ava Chen Ava at Contoso example local address book one of 11 Ben Ortiz Ben at Contoso example local address book two of 11 Carlos Mendes Carlos at Fabrikam.example, local address book, Dana Okafor, dana at contoso.example, local address book, four of eleven, contact name, edit, Dana Okafor, cap N, contact email, edit, dana at contoso.example, cap E, add contact, button, cap A, edit contact, button, cap E, delete selected contact, button, cap D, all inboxes, QuickMail window, enter table messages, 12 by 5, Dana Okafor. Project Falcon Kickoff.

Michael: So, it opened on Search contacts. One tab reached a button called Filter, all accounts. Then the contacts list, starting with Ava Chen.

Maya: Each person reads as their name, their address, and where the contact came from. All of these say Local address book, which means somebody added them by hand. If you sync contacts from an account, those people say the account's name instead.

Michael: Then tab went to two fields, Contact name and Contact email, showing whoever is selected. And after them, the buttons: Add contact, Edit contact, Delete selected contact. You heard Narrator say cap A, cap E and cap D after them. Those are the access keys, so alt A adds and alt D deletes. F2 edits too.

Maya: Escape closed the address book and put us back in the message list where we started.

Adding, editing and deleting a contact (3:28)

Michael: Adding someone is alt A. Focus jumps to the name field, you type a name, tab, type the address, and press Enter.

[Demo, 3:37, heard] address book window search contacts edit contact name edit cap N add contact Wendy contact email edit cap E Wendy Fabrikam Wendy Brooks added

Maya: Narrator said Add contact when the form opened, echoed what we typed a word at a time, and then confirmed: Wendy Brooks added.

Michael: Editing is F2 on a contact in the list. This time we'll search first. We type Luis in the search box, tab twice to the list, and change his name.

Maya: One thing to listen for. When we tab into the list, Luis is focused but not yet selected, so we press space to select him before F2. We'll come back to that.

[Demo, 4:30, heard] address book window search contacts edit filter all accounts contacts list view Luis Moreno Luis at Contoso example contact name edit Luis Moreno cap N edit Luis Moreno Luis Moreno Luis Moreno Diaz updated

Michael: The search narrowed the list to one person. F2 put us in the name field with the old name, Luis Moreno. We typed the new one, pressed Enter, and heard Luis Moreno Diaz updated.

Maya: And deleting is the Delete key on a contact, or alt D. This time it's Nora Walsh, and again, space to select her first.

[Demo, 5:19, heard] address book window search contacts edit filter all accounts contacts list view Nora Walsh Nora at Fabrikam example confirm delete dialogue yes button alt plus y no button alt plus n delete no item in view

Michael: A confirmation came up, and Narrator read its two buttons, Yes with alt Y, and No with alt N. The question itself, which on screen asks whether to delete Nora Walsh and shows her address, wasn't read. We've noted that for the developer.

Maya: Alt Y deleted her. Since she was the only match for the search, the list was left empty, and Narrator said no item in view.

Maya: Now, that space bar. Tabbing into the contacts list puts focus on the first person without selecting them. Until something's selected, keys like shift F10, F2, Delete and alt Enter do nothing at all. Pressing space, or any arrow key, selects. We're calling it out because it looks like a bug, and it's on the list we're giving the developer.

Contact properties (6:28)

Michael: Every contact has a properties window. Alt Enter opens it, the same key as for messages and folders. It's the quickest way to find out which groups someone is in. Here's Grace Kim.

[Demo, 6:42, heard] Address book window, search contacts, edit, filter, all accounts, contacts list view, Grace Kim, grace at contoso.example Contact properties window, contact properties, data grid, columns field value contains 5 rows Exit table, contact, selected, 1 of 5 Display name, Grace Kim, selected, 2 of 5 email address grace at contoso example selected three of last used Thursday October 22nd 2026 groups falcon team selected five of five address book window contacts list view grace Kim grace at contoso example local address book one of

Maya: Contact properties is a little table of fields and values. Down arrow walked it: the display name, Grace Kim, the email address, when the contact was last used, and then her groups. Escape went back to the list.

Finding mail from a contact (7:52)

Michael: Here's one of my favourite features. From any contact, you can pull up everything they've sent you, across every account and folder QuickMail has stored. Select the contact, press shift F10 for the context menu, and choose Find mail from this contact.

[Demo, 8:10, heard] Address Book Window, Search Contacts, Edit, Filter, All Accounts, Button, Cap, Contacts List View, Dana Okafor, Dana at Contoso.Example, Local Address, Find Mail from This Contact, Menu Item, One of Five, Find Mail to This Contact, Menu Item, Find Mail from This Contact, Menu Item, Two Messages from Dana Okafor, Mail from Dana Okafor, QuickMail Window, Enter table messages 12 by 5 Dana Okafor project Falcon

Maya: The menu opened on Find mail from this contact, one of five. We went down to Find mail to this contact and back up, so you can hear both, and pressed Enter.

Michael: The address book closed, and Narrator said two messages from Dana Okafor. The window title changed to Mail from Dana Okafor, so you can tell the results apart from a folder. Escape in the message list takes you back to where you were.

Maya: Find mail to this contact does the same for messages you sent them. It looks at the To line only, so a message where they were just copied won't show up.

Grab Addresses (9:23)

Michael: Now for the feature that fills your address book. It's called Grab Addresses. You're reading a message with a crowd of people on it, and you want all of them, in one step. Open the message and press control shift G. It's also on the Message menu, as Grab Addresses from Message.

Maya: Our message is from Dana Okafor, called Project Falcon kickoff. It went to Jordan, who's us, plus Luis Moreno and Grace Kim, with Omar Haddad and Ava Chen copied. We're going to save everyone except ourselves, and put them all in a new group called Falcon team.

[Demo, 9:58, heard] Add to address book window, addresses from message pane, Dana Okafor, dana at Contoso.example check box checked, scan off, Jordan Lee Jordan at Contoso.example check box unchecked, Luis Moreno Luis at Contoso.example check box checked, Grace Kim Grace at Contoso.example check box checked, Omar Haddad Omar at Contoso.example check box checked, Ava Chen Ava at Contoso.example check box checked add to group check box unchecked checked group budget team combo box collapsed budget team one of three selected family two of three create new group three of three group budget team combo box collapsed new group name edit Falcon project Falcon kickoff QuickMail window enter table messages 12 by 5 Dana Okafor project Falcon kickoff

Michael: Let's unpack that. A window called Add to address book opened, with a list of every address from the message: the sender, everyone on the To line, and everyone copied. Each one is a checkbox, and they all start checked.

Maya: Down arrow moved from Dana to Jordan Lee. Space unchecked Jordan, because that's us. Then down arrow through Luis, Grace, Omar, and Ava, all checked. The whole list is one tab stop, and the arrows move through it.

Michael: Tab went to a checkbox called Add to group. Space checked it. Tab again reached the Group combo box, which said Budget team, the first group we already have.

Maya: Alt down arrow opened the list: Budget team, one of three, Family, two of three, and Create new group, three of three. Enter chose it.

Michael: And here's something to notice. When the list closed, Narrator said Group, Budget team, the old value. The screen showed Create new group, and that's what was saved. So that announcement is wrong, and it's on the bug list. We also tried down arrow without opening the list. That changes the choice too, but Narrator says nothing.

Maya: Then tab went to New group name, where we typed Falcon team, and alt S saved. The window closed without saying anything, and we were back on the message.

Michael: What got saved? Five contacts, Dana, Luis, Grace, Omar, and Ava, and a new group, Falcon team, with all five in it. Ava and Dana were already in the address book, so they were simply added to the group, not duplicated.

Maya: Two details worth knowing. Grab Addresses reads the From, To, and Copy lines, but not blind copies or the Reply-To address. And if you leave Add to group unchecked, it just saves the contacts.

Michael: And one more: QuickMail never adds people to your address book behind your back. Writing to someone doesn't save them. Grab Addresses, the Add button, and a menu item on addresses in a message you're writing, which we'll get to, are the ways in.

The Groups tab (13:10)

Maya: Let's look at that group. The address book has two tabs, Contacts and Groups, and control G jumps to Groups. Each group reads its name and how many members it has. Tab moves to the members of whichever group is selected.

[Demo, 13:25, heard] address book window search contacts edit groups tab item groups selected supports multiple selection but budget team three members one of three selected Falcon team five members two of three selected family two members three of three selected Falcon team five members two of three selected group members list view Ava Chen ava at contoso example one of five Dana Okafor dana at contoso example two of five selected grace kim grace at contoso example three of five selected Luis Moreno luis at contoso example four of five selected Omar Haddad omar at contoso example four of four selected groups list view falcon team four members, two of three, selected.

Michael: Control G landed on the Groups tab. Down arrow went through Budget team, three members, then Falcon team, five members, then Family, two members. Up arrow came back to Falcon team.

Maya: Tab went into Group members. Ava Chen, one of five. Then Dana Okafor, Grace Kim, and Luis Moreno, four of five.

Michael: Then we pressed Delete on Luis. That takes him out of the group. It doesn't delete the contact; he's still in the address book. Focus moved to the next member, Omar Haddad, now four of four.

Maya: And shift tab back to the groups list confirmed it: Falcon team, four members.

Adding someone to a group (15:04)

Michael: To put an existing contact into a group, go to them on the Contacts tab and press shift F10. Below the two find mail items, the menu lists every group, as Add to, and the group's name. Let's put Nora Walsh on the Falcon team.

[Demo, 15:21, heard] Address book window, search contacts, edit, filter, all accounts, button, cap, contacts list view, Nora Walsh, Nora at Fabrikam.example, local address book, find mail from this contact, menu item, one of five, find mail to this contact, menu item, add to budget team, menu item, three of, add to falcon team, menu item, four of, contacts list view, Nora Walsh. Nora at Fabrikam.example local address book one of one selected added Nora Walsh Nora at Fabrikam.example to Falcon team

Maya: We typed Nora, tabbed to the list, and pressed space to select her. Shift F10 opened the menu. Down arrow went through Find mail to this contact, Add to Budget team, three of five, and Add to Falcon team, four of five. Enter, and Narrator said Added Nora Walsh, with her address, to Falcon team.

Creating, renaming and deleting groups (16:24)

Michael: On the Groups tab, control shift N makes a new group, F2 renames it, and Delete deletes it. Watch how each one talks to you.

[Demo, 16:33, heard] address book window search contacts edit groups tab item groups selected supports mult group name edit type a new group name and press enter press escape to cancel book groups book club no members selected supports multiple selection group name edit book club rename book club type a new name and press Press enter. Press neighborhood. Book. Groups. Neighborhood book club. No members selected. Supports multiples. Confirm dialogue. Yes. Button. Alt plus Y. No. Button. Alt plus N. Address book window. Groups list view. Family. Two members. Three of three. Selected. 2 members, 3 of 3, selected

Maya: Control shift N opened a field called Group name, and a hint: Type a new group name and press Enter. Press Escape to cancel. We typed Book club and pressed Enter, and focus landed on the new group: Book club, no members.

Michael: F2 said Rename Book club, with a similar hint. We typed Neighborhood book club, Enter, and there it was in the list.

Maya: Then Delete. The confirmation read its Yes and No buttons. Alt Y would have done it, but we just pressed Enter on Yes. The group was gone, and focus moved to Family, two members.

Michael: Deleting a group never deletes the people in it. The confirmation even says so, when a group has members. And group names have to be unique, ignoring upper and lower case.

The Group Manager (18:14)

Maya: There's a second way to work with groups, built for adding a lot of people at once. It's called the Group Manager. Control shift M opens it from the address book. On the left are your groups. On the right are the selected group's members, and a search box called Search contacts to add, with a list of matches under it. Enter on a match adds that person to the group, and Enter again takes them out.

[Demo, 18:38, heard] Address book window, search contacts, edit Group manager window, groups, selected Selection budget team, three members list Groups list view, budget team, three members One of Falcon team, five members Two of three, selected Enter table group members, five by two Ava Chen Ava at Contoso.example Exit table, search contacts to add, edit Enter table contact candidates one by two Mia Rivera Mia at Fabrikam dot example selected Added Mia Rivera Mia at Fabrikam dot example to Falcon team removed Mia Rivera Mia at Fabrikam dot example from Falcon team Added Mia Rivera Mia at Fabrikam dot example to Falcon team Exit table search contacts to add at enter table group members five by two ava chen ava at contoso.example, non-selected, one of six

Michael: The Group Manager opened on its groups list. Our first down arrow selected Budget team, and the second went to Falcon team, five members. Tab reached the Group members table, starting with Ava Chen.

Maya: Tab again went to Search contacts to add. We typed Mia, and tab went to Contact candidates, with one match, Mia Rivera. Space selected her, which, yes, is the same thing as before.

Michael: Then Enter: Added Mia Rivera to Falcon team. Enter again: Removed Mia Rivera from Falcon team. And Enter a third time added her back. It's a toggle.

Maya: Shift tab twice went back to the members table. Ava Chen, one of six. Six now, with Mia in it.

Addressing a message (20:29)

Michael: All of this pays off when you write a message. Control N, and focus starts in the To field. As soon as you type, QuickMail suggests people and groups, and tells you how many it found.

Maya: It matches any part of a name or an address. Groups come first, then people, with whoever you wrote to most recently at the top. Down arrow goes into the suggestions, Enter or tab accepts, and Escape closes the list.

[Demo, 20:56, heard] New message, plain text, QuickMail window, to, edit, menu One suggestion Address suggestions list view, falcon team, group, five members, to, edit One suggestion Address suggestions list view, Mia Rivera Mia at Fabrikam.example, to, edit Mia Rivera Mia at Fabrikam.example.button Dana Okafor, dana at Contoso.example.button Luis Moreno Luis at Contoso.example.button Dana Okafor, dana at Contoso.example.button

Michael: We typed f a l, and Narrator said one suggestion. Down arrow: Falcon team, group, five members. We pressed Enter, and Narrator said To, edit.

Maya: Now, here's another one for the list. QuickMail is supposed to say Inserted five addresses from group Falcon team at that point. That message is sent, but in our recordings it was never heard. Going back to the To field seems to talk over it. All five addresses did go in, as separate addresses.

Michael: Then we typed m i a. One suggestion, Mia Rivera, and Enter added her.

Maya: Each address in the field is like a button. Left arrow from where you're typing moves onto them: Mia Rivera, then Dana Okafor, then Luis Moreno. Delete removed Luis, and Narrator read Dana Okafor, where focus landed. Right arrow goes back the other way, and backspace in an empty field removes the last address.

Inserting a whole group from the address book (22:35)

Michael: You can also go the other way: open the address book from the message, with control shift B, and send a whole group to To, Cc, or Bcc. On the Groups tab, alt T inserts into To, alt C into Cc, and alt B into Bcc.

[Demo, 22:53, heard] New message, plain text, QuickMail window, to, edit, menu. Address book window, search contacts, edit. Groups tab item, groups, selected, supports multi, budget team, three members, one of three, selected, inserted three addresses from group budget team. New message, plain text, QuickMail window, to, edit. CC, edit Sam Patel Sam at Contoso.example, button Priya Shah Priya at Contoso.example, button

Maya: Control G went to Groups, Budget team was selected, and alt C said Inserted three addresses from group Budget team. So this time we did hear it.

Michael: Escape closed the address book, and we were back in the To field. Tab went to the Cc field, and Narrator just said C C, edit. Left arrow then read the addresses, Sam Patel and Priya Shah.

Maya: The program means to read out the addresses already in a field when you move into it. That didn't happen here, so that's on the list too.

New addresses and Check Addresses (24:05)

Michael: Last demo. What about someone who isn't in your address book yet? Type the full address and press comma, semicolon, tab, or Enter, and it becomes one of those address buttons. Shift F10 on it offers Copy address, Add to address book, and Remove.

Maya: And control K is Check Addresses. It goes through every address on the message and tells you if anything looks wrong.

[Demo, 24:30, heard] New message plain text QuickMail window to edit menu Wendy Brooks Fabrikam Wendy dot Brooks at Fabrikam example button copy address menu item one of three menu key add to address book menu item two of three wendy dot brooks at Fabrikam dot example button added wendy dot brooks at Fabrikam dot example to address book to edit one one one grace one one one one two addresses checked one unrecognized unrecognized grace at contoso button grace at contoso

Michael: We typed Wendy's address with a comma at the end, and Narrator echoed the words. Left arrow went onto the new address, and shift F10 opened the menu: Copy address, one of three, then Add to address book, two of three. Enter, and Narrator said Added wendy dot brooks at fabrikam dot example to address book.

Maya: Then right arrow went back to the typing field, and we typed grace at contoso, with no dot com, and a comma. While we typed, those little numbers you heard were the suggestion counts, cut short by the next letter.

Michael: Control K said: two addresses checked. One unrecognized. Left arrow told us which one. That address now starts with the word Unrecognized: Unrecognized, grace at contoso.

What we didn't demonstrate (26:09)

Maya: A few address features need things our offline test machine doesn't have, so we'll just describe them.

Michael: Contact sync. When you add a Microsoft, Google, or iCloud account, or later in Manage Accounts, there's a checkbox called Sync contacts from this account. Then the people stored in that account show up in your address book, ready for suggestions. For Microsoft and Google, that includes people you've recently written to.

Maya: Synced contacts are read-only. QuickMail never writes back to your account, so you change them where they live, and then press Sync Now in the address book. It also refreshes quietly about twice a day.

Michael: When you have several accounts syncing, the Filter button you heard at the start narrows the address book to one account at a time, or to just the people you added by hand. Alt F reaches it.

Maya: In Settings, on the General tab, there's an option called Show field labels in the contact list. It makes each contact read as Name, then the name, email, then the address, and account, then where it came from. Handy if you like to know which part you're hearing.

Michael: The address book has its own command palette, too. Control shift P, inside the address book, lists everything it can do, including the ones without a key, like Filter addresses by account.

Maya: And the list views take type-ahead. Type the first letters of a name in the contacts list, the groups list, or a group's members, and you jump straight there.

Wrapping up (27:38)

Michael: So, to sum up. Control shift B is the address book. Control shift G grabs every address from a message, and can drop them all into a group. Control G is the Groups tab, control shift N makes a group, and shift F10 on a contact adds them to one.

Maya: And when you write, type part of a name or a group, down arrow, and Enter. Control K checks the lot.

Michael: We also found some rough edges while making this, like that space bar, and a couple of announcements that didn't come through. They're all written up for the developer, so they may be gone by the time you hear this.

Maya: QuickMail is free. You'll find it at github dot com slash kelly l ford slash QuickMail, and the user guide is linked from the Help menu, or press F1. Thanks for listening. I'm Maya.

Michael: And I'm Michael. See you next time.