You've Got Mail Trivia
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49 free You've Got Mail trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
Don't you love New York in the fall? This You've Got Mail trivia quiz has 49 free questions with answers about Nora Ephron's 1998 romantic comedy: Kathleen Kelly and her children's bookstore, Joe Fox and the chain that swallows it, the AOL screen names, the dog at the end, and the Upper West Side locations where the third Hanks-Ryan pairing was filmed. The early questions are easy for anyone who has seen the movie once. Later ones cover the 1937 Hungarian play and the 1940 Lubitsch film that started it all, the supporting cast from Greg Kinnear to Dave Chappelle, casting stories, the Harry Nilsson-heavy soundtrack, budgets and grosses, and the Ephron sisters' careers, so even devoted fans should find a few surprises. Play it on movie night, in a book-club round or to settle who really remembers the film. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the film, its sources and its cast, and each question links to the page and sentence that supports it.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which earlier Nora Ephron film also starred Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan as strangers who fall in love from afar?
Sleepless in Seattle
Sleepless in Seattle, their 1993 hit, kept the pair apart for almost the whole film; You've Got Mail reunited both stars with its director and had them meeting, and quarreling, from the first act.
Q 02Which comedy first paired Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, eight years before You've Got Mail?
Joe Versus the Volcano
Joe Versus the Volcano gave Meg Ryan three different roles opposite Tom Hanks, as the three women his doomed hero meets on his way to a Pacific island.
Q 03Which online service's spoken greeting for new email gave You've Got Mail its title?
AOL
AOL's cheery voice is what Kathleen waits for each morning: 'my breath catches in my chest until I hear three little words: You've got mail.'
Q 04You've Got Mail traces back to which 1937 Hungarian play by Miklós László?
Parfumerie
Parfumerie opened in Budapest in 1937, shortly before its author left for New York; Hollywood filmed its feuding-clerks plot twice before Nora Ephron moved the letters online.
Q 05Which director made the 1940 romantic comedy that You've Got Mail reworks for the email age?
Ernst Lubitsch
Ernst Lubitsch cast James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan as Budapest shop clerks who bicker all day without knowing they are each other's adored pen pals.
Q 06In the Good Old Summertime, the 1949 musical version of the story behind You've Got Mail, is set in which city?
Chicago
Chicago at the turn of the century is where Judy Garland lands a job in a music store and clashes with a salesman, Van Johnson, never guessing he is the pen pal she is falling for.
Q 07Which 1963 Broadway musical shares its source play with You've Got Mail?
She Loves Me
She Loves Me has songs by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick, the team behind Fiddler on the Roof; its two feuding clerks find each other through a lonely-hearts advertisement.
Q 08What is the name of Kathleen Kelly's bookstore in You've Got Mail?
The Shop Around the Corner
The Shop Around the Corner borrows the title of the 1940 James Stewart film the story comes from; Joe's family, sizing up the competition, grumble that it has 'been there forever'.
Q 09Which film does Joe Fox call 'the sum of all wisdom' while urging Kathleen to 'go to the mattresses'?
The Godfather
The Godfather is 'the answer to any question', Joe writes, and he coaches her with 'It's not personal, it's business'; the advice helps her fight the very chain he runs.
Q 10What screen name does Kathleen Kelly use in her emails to Joe?
Shopgirl
Shopgirl is what she calls herself to a man she met in a chat room where, she says, they both claimed never to have been before; the pair agree to tell each other nothing personal.
Q 11What is Joe Fox's screen name in You've Got Mail?
NY152
NY152 comes from his street address, a guess Kathleen waves away as too 'prosaic'; teasing her, Joe suggests her pen pal might be 152 years old, or have had 152 moles removed.
Q 12In You've Got Mail, what is the bookstore chain owned by Joe's family called?
Fox Books
Fox Books opens a superstore near Kathleen's shop; Joe predicts the neighborhood will hate it, then be seduced by 'our square footage, our discounts, our deep armchairs and our cappuccino'.
Q 13Kathleen's boyfriend Frank Navasky writes a column for which newspaper?
The New York Observer
The New York Observer runs Frank's column; when he uses it to defend Kathleen's shop, the piece brings pickets and television crews to the street outside.
Q 21Which Monty Python member's scenes as a reclusive novelist were cut from You've Got Mail?
Michael Palin
Michael Palin filmed the part of William Spungeon, a famously reclusive author whom Frank trails around the neighborhood, but the whole subplot was removed before release.
Q 22Before filming You've Got Mail, Nora Ephron sent Meg Ryan and Heather Burns to work in which New York shop?
Books of Wonder
Books of Wonder, a children's bookshop in Manhattan, was the model for Kathleen's store, and the two actresses worked its floor to learn how real booksellers behave.
Q 23In which New York neighborhood was most of You've Got Mail filmed?
Manhattan's Upper West Side
Q 14Which You've Got Mail character says she once fell madly in love with a man who 'ran Spain'?
Birdie
Birdie, the oldest hand in Kathleen's shop, will say only that it wasn't meant to be because 'he ran Spain'; her colleagues conclude, appalled, that she means General Franco.
Q 15In which famous New York food store does Joe rescue Kathleen from the cash-only checkout line?
Zabar's
Zabar's is where Kathleen, holding only a credit card the night before Thanksgiving, stalls the line until Joe charms the cashier, Rose, into making an exception.
Q 16Who peeks through the café window for Joe and tells him that his pen pal is Kathleen?
Kevin
Kevin reports that she is very pretty, then breaks the news: if Joe doesn't like Kathleen Kelly, he isn't going to like this girl, 'because it is Kathleen Kelly'.
Q 17After closing her shop in You've Got Mail, what does Kathleen decide to do?
Write children's books
Write children's books: after a life spent selling other people's stories she starts one of her own, and says it was her anonymous pen pal who first made her think she could write.
Q 18What is the name of Joe's dog, whose name Kathleen hears called at the final meeting?
Brinkley
Brinkley was introduced in the first email we hear Joe send, 'Brinkley is my dog. He loves the streets of New York as much as I do', so the name tells her at once who is coming round the path.
Q 19Which Jane Austen novel do Joe and Kathleen argue about in You've Got Mail, mirroring their own romance?
Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice is the book Kathleen carries to the café, with a rose in it, so her pen pal can recognize her; Joe, who has struggled through it on her advice, turns up and needles her about Mr. Darcy.
Q 20Which actress turned down the role of Kathleen Kelly in You've Got Mail?
Julia Roberts
Julia Roberts has said she passed on it; the luck had once run the other way, when she landed her Oscar-nominated role in Steel Magnolias after Meg Ryan gave up the part for When Harry Met Sally...
Manhattan's Upper West Side plays itself, down to a real café on West 83rd Street, though Kathleen's bookshop was really a cheese and antiques store dressed for the part.
Q 24Which flower does Kathleen Kelly call 'the friendliest flower' in You've Got Mail?
Daisies
Daisies are her favorite, embroidered on her handkerchief, and when she is home sick Joe turns up at her door with a bunch of them.
Q 25Which film opened the same weekend as You've Got Mail and finished second to it at the box office?
The Prince of Egypt
The Prince of Egypt took $14.5 million that weekend to You've Got Mail's $18.4 million; a week later Patch Adams opened at number one and both slipped down the chart.
Q 26Which studio released You've Got Mail in December 1998?
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. released it; in 2001 the internet company whose software fills the film went on to buy the studio's parent company, Time Warner.
Q 27The You've Got Mail soundtrack leans most heavily on which singer-songwriter?
Harry Nilsson
Harry Nilsson has more songs on the album than any other artist, and his 'Over the Rainbow' plays as Kathleen finally learns who her pen pal is.
Q 28Which singer-songwriter does Kathleen love, while Joe says he 'could never be with someone who likes' her?
Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell's 'River' is the song Kathleen quotes while trimming her Christmas tree; Joe, puzzling over 'Both Sides, Now', asks whether the singer is supposed to be a pilot.
Q 29In an early email in You've Got Mail, Joe says New York in the fall makes him want to buy what?
School supplies
School supplies, and he adds that he would send his correspondent 'a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils' if only he knew her name and address.
Q 30Greg Kinnear plays which character in You've Got Mail?
Kathleen's columnist boyfriend
Kathleen's columnist boyfriend, Frank Navasky, would happily reverse the Industrial Revolution; the two finally admit over dinner that neither is in love, and part as friends.