A system and method for managing messages within an application interface that includes receiving a message stream; providing a navigational menu to a set of message streams; detecting an initiated gesture item for at least one message within a view of the navigational menu; tracking gesture-state within a progressive order of gesture-states; identifying an action of the gesture-state wherein the action corresponds to the current view and relative ordering of the navigational menu; and applying the message sorting action on the message according to a final gesture-state.