Improve keyboard navigation in Mail Desktop Application

Current behavior:

When using the Proton Mail desktop application in split view, selecting an email displays the message preview in the reading pane.

As a keyboard-oriented user, I expect pressing the Down Arrow key to move directly to the next email in the message list while keeping the preview pane synchronized with the selected message.

Instead, the focus appears to move into the preview pane. Pressing the Down Arrow key scrolls the content of the currently opened email rather than selecting the next email. This creates a confusing and inefficient workflow.

Expected behavior:

When the message list is active, pressing Up and Down Arrow should immediately move between emails and update the preview pane accordingly.

Optional keyboard shortcuts could be provided to explicitly switch focus between:
• Message list
• Reading pane
• Folder list

Why this matters:

For users processing large volumes of email, keyboard navigation is critical for productivity. The current behavior requires unnecessary focus changes and extra keystrokes, making Proton Mail significantly slower to use than Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird, and other mature email clients.

This issue affects daily usability and is one of the main reasons I find it difficult to use Proton Mail as my primary email application despite otherwise appreciating the product.

I am a long time Proton customer and Visionary subscriber who has supported Proton for many years, including through its early growth period.

Despite strongly supporting Proton’s mission, privacy model, and product ecosystem, this particular usability issue has a surprisingly large impact on daily workflow efficiency.

The current keyboard navigation behavior makes email triage noticeably slower than in Outlook, Apple Mail, and other mature mail clients. For users processing large volumes of email every day, this is not a minor inconvenience but a core workflow problem.

Fixing this would significantly improve the desktop experience and make Proton Mail a more viable primary email platform for power users and long term professional customers.