With [MailSlurp](/api/) received emails are marked as `unread` when they are processed. Unread emails are bold in the user interface and can be fetched with the `unreadOnly` flag with many [wait for methods](/guides/receiving-emails/). Sometimes you may want to control the read behavior manually - for this you can use the email controller `markAsRead` method and pass a boolean:

## Javascript example

You can use the `markAsRead` [API method](/docs/api/) with any framework. Here is an example using the Javascript client.

```typescript
import { MailSlurp } from "mailslurp-client";

const timeout = 120001;
const mailslurp = new MailSlurp({ apiKey: process.env.apiKey });
jest.setTimeout(timeout);

describe("email read", () => {
  test("can receive unread emails and set the read status", async () => {
    const inbox = await mailslurp.createInbox();
    await mailslurp.sendEmail(inbox.id!, { to: [inbox.emailAddress!], subject: "hello" });
    // can get an unread email
    const emails = await mailslurp.waitForEmailCount(2, inbox.id, timeout, true);
    expect(emails.length).toEqual(2);
    expect(emails[1].read).toEqual(false);

    // fetching email directly marks as read
    const email = await mailslurp.getEmail(emails[1].id!);
    expect(email.read).toEqual(true);

    // can set read value to true or false
    const emailPreview = await mailslurp.emailController.markAsRead(email.id!, false);
    expect(emailPreview.read).toEqual(false);
  });
});
```

## Dashboard control

You can also set email seen settings on the email page using the settings dropdown.