There is an Inbox view which you can make a default. You can also turn on setting to not mark messages as read automatically

▲

Semaphor 11 hours ago | parent [-]

I just had a look. I can absolutely understand parent. I’d want an option to include read messages in the inbox, not avoid marking as read. I want a history of stuff in my inbox, the same way discord, my RSS reader, and my email client work. All those have a read and unread state, but I can still see the read ones.

	▲	tabbott 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You may be looking for the recent view (https://zulip.com/help/recent-conversations) which you can also set to be the default/home view for your account. (And administrators can set it to be the default for new users in their organization, if the way your organization communicates is such that it's a better default than inbox).