You and I may not have met before, we may not have connected on social media or even walked past each other in the street. However, I'd be willing to bet that you and I have something in common. Email. Despite numerous predictions that email will be replaced by social media, or variety of other apps, it's still here. According to a recent report, 269 billion emails are sent every day. So, the platforms we choose to send and receive our email are important. Gmail is the number one choice for over 1 billion people, but Gmail hasn't changed very much in the last few years, so this week I decided to try Google's latest email offering, Inbox by Gmail.
What is Inbox by Gmail?
Google says Inbox is built on everything they learned from Gmail; a fresh start that goes beyond email to help you get back to what matters. It's available to anyone with an existing Gmail or school Google account by visiting inbox.google.com and has actually been around since May 2015. Here are some of the key features you should know about:
1. Bundling - the ability to group emails by type in your inbox. If you subscribe to a lot of newsletters or forums and you start using Inbox, you will soon see these emails appear as one category, instead of 7 or 8 separate emails. Clicking on that category will show you all the emails that have been grouped together so that you can read and work on all of these emails. Inbox comes with a number of pre-made bundles, but you can make your own too. If you don't like bundling, you can disable it.
2. Snooze - If you Snooze an email you basically hide it for a set period of time. So, if you have an email that you can't answer yet because you are waiting on some additional information, you can Snooze it so that it leaves your inbox and returns at a time when you are better equipped to deal with it. If you've ever used Boomerang for Gmail, the functionality is very similar.
3. Reminders - Add a task with a due date to help you remember to take care of something. Reminders are can be added to your Inbox or snoozed until nearer the time. Reminders also appear on the Reminders calendar in your Google Calendar, just like they do when you add them with Google Keep.
1. Bundling - the ability to group emails by type in your inbox. If you subscribe to a lot of newsletters or forums and you start using Inbox, you will soon see these emails appear as one category, instead of 7 or 8 separate emails. Clicking on that category will show you all the emails that have been grouped together so that you can read and work on all of these emails. Inbox comes with a number of pre-made bundles, but you can make your own too. If you don't like bundling, you can disable it.
2. Snooze - If you Snooze an email you basically hide it for a set period of time. So, if you have an email that you can't answer yet because you are waiting on some additional information, you can Snooze it so that it leaves your inbox and returns at a time when you are better equipped to deal with it. If you've ever used Boomerang for Gmail, the functionality is very similar.
3. Reminders - Add a task with a due date to help you remember to take care of something. Reminders are can be added to your Inbox or snoozed until nearer the time. Reminders also appear on the Reminders calendar in your Google Calendar, just like they do when you add them with Google Keep.
4. Pinning - Highlight the important emails you want to work on by pinning them to the top of your email. This means that you can clean out the rest of your inbox with the Sweep button and leave only the pinned emails. Alternatively, you can pin the important emails and click the Pin switch on the toolbar to filter and show only the pinned emails. This can be useful for removing other distractions from your Inbox and concentrating on a few key emails.
5. Quick Replies - If you use the Gmail mobile app, you will already be familiar with this feature. Quick replies are short suggestions on how you might want to reply to the email you just read. They are often eerily accurate and a quick way to save yourself some typing if you want to confirm or thank someone.
6. Material Design - Despite the ability to customize with Themes, Gmail is not very easy on the eye. The overall design is a little dated and not in keeping with many of the other apps in the Google stable. So, when Inbox was created, Google made sure to incorporate its Material Design language. This gives a very clean and modern appearance that also allows you to hide the sidebar where all your labels live. Hangouts are also hidden away in the top right-hand corner.
5. Quick Replies - If you use the Gmail mobile app, you will already be familiar with this feature. Quick replies are short suggestions on how you might want to reply to the email you just read. They are often eerily accurate and a quick way to save yourself some typing if you want to confirm or thank someone.
6. Material Design - Despite the ability to customize with Themes, Gmail is not very easy on the eye. The overall design is a little dated and not in keeping with many of the other apps in the Google stable. So, when Inbox was created, Google made sure to incorporate its Material Design language. This gives a very clean and modern appearance that also allows you to hide the sidebar where all your labels live. Hangouts are also hidden away in the top right-hand corner.
A Quick Reflection
I used Inbox by Gmail for a week. I didn't think I would like it because I already have a well developed system for dealing with email in Gmail. That said, I actually adapted to Inbox quicker than I expected, albeit with some tweaks along the way. For instance, I disabled bundling. It doesn't work for the way I process email, but I may revisit it again in the future. Snoozing made me nervous (what if I never see that email again!) but it works just as you would expect it to, so I will continue to use it until something breaks. Reminders were not something I used much at all, simply because I don't want my email inbox to be my to-do list. I use Todoist for that.
Pinning was useful occasionally, but again, not something I used very much. If you are used to starring things in Gmail then this might be an easy transition for you. I never used stars very much so probably won't pin very much either. The quick replies, on the other hand, were something that I used with increasing frequency. The algorithm that Google uses to scan the content of your email and serve up some suggested replies is surprisingly accurate, and according to Google, the more you use it, the better it gets. Lastly, the design really appealed to me. I like things that are designed well and look good. For that reason, I have previously used things like Spark to process my Gmail, but Inbox is a big improvement over Gmail, in terms of design, so I am happy to use that to read my email.
Pinning was useful occasionally, but again, not something I used very much. If you are used to starring things in Gmail then this might be an easy transition for you. I never used stars very much so probably won't pin very much either. The quick replies, on the other hand, were something that I used with increasing frequency. The algorithm that Google uses to scan the content of your email and serve up some suggested replies is surprisingly accurate, and according to Google, the more you use it, the better it gets. Lastly, the design really appealed to me. I like things that are designed well and look good. For that reason, I have previously used things like Spark to process my Gmail, but Inbox is a big improvement over Gmail, in terms of design, so I am happy to use that to read my email.
Final Thoughts
Inbox by Gmail isn't perfect. There are still some quirks that you need to put up with, even though this product has been around for almost three years now. For instance, you can use Undo Send with Inbox, but for some reason, you have to set it up in Gmail's settings. Another frustration for me is contact groups. You can't email a local contact group from Inbox because although it will auto complete individual contacts, it doesn't recognize or find any of your contact groups. There's also no unread mail icon on the browser tab and I have certainly found that useful in the past. You can't mute email threads, use templates, tweak your signature, set an out of office reply, or add other email accounts. There may be workarounds for some or all of these issues, but as yet I haven't found any.
However, if you put these concerns aside for just a minute, I think you might want to give Inbox a try. There's a lot to like, and I for one, am fast becoming a convert. So, if you're already using Inbox, I'd love to hear any tips and tricks you have in the comments below. Similarly, if you tried it and hated it, what was the straw that broke the camel's back for you?
However, if you put these concerns aside for just a minute, I think you might want to give Inbox a try. There's a lot to like, and I for one, am fast becoming a convert. So, if you're already using Inbox, I'd love to hear any tips and tricks you have in the comments below. Similarly, if you tried it and hated it, what was the straw that broke the camel's back for you?
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