Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Thoughts on Google Inbox by Gmail

So I got an invitation to try out Google Inbox by Gmail. I guess that's the name of it, not really sure. I think it's kinda silly to create an entirely new brand/product that is basically a re-structuring of Gmail. Before I get into "Inbox", let me describe what my Gmail experience has been like for a few years now.

I never leave unread emails lying around. I'm not one of those ppl with 2,000 unread emails. If an email comes in, and I know I don't need it, it gets trashed. If I don't have time to read it, but know i probably should, it gets starred. If I need to read it, and that's the end of it, I just read it and move on. I do no filing, just deleting, reading, and starring. I use a special "view" in Gmail to keep all starred emails on top. If you're not a gmail person, it's the same as flagging. Basically there is always three piles of email: The unread pile at the very top, starred emails under that, and everything else at the bottom.

"Inbox" only does two things.

#1: it creates a new folder for you. When looking at your email thru Inbox, it's a container called "Done". All of your marked or unread emails stay visible. If you're done with it, you swipe it away, and it gets hidden in the "Done" folder. This kinda merges the function of a To-do list and your email. In fact, Inbox allows you to create "Reminders", which is almost like emailing yourself, then flagging the msg.

#2: it has a snoozing feature. You can make an email hide in a "Snooze" folder for a defined period of time (24 hours, a week, etc.)

The only thing about Inbox is that in order for it to make sense, I had to do some house-cleaning. Remember my big three piles of email? Well pile #3 was all the "rest" of the email. I used inbox to swipe that entire pile into the "done" folder (it makes it relatively easy by allowing u to swipe a whole month away). Another issue is that it didn't automatically see my currently starred messages and pin them. I had to find them manually and pin them. I only had to do this once, and from that point on, all pinned msgs were syncing w/ the standard "flagging" system.

The biggest drawback on Inbox: Gmail has a huge support base for plugins n stuff, which i imagine don't work within Inbox's pretty interface. I however, a fan of simplicity and forward-movement, have been willing to deal with that (at least for the past week) in favor of a cleaner email system.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

OMG! You got an INVITE!?!?!?! UGGGGGGGG.... Oh, wait...

I usually opt for keeping my Gmail inbox as empty as possible, this has just made that easier... I HATE unread mail, but HATE forgetting about mail I need to follow up on that I forget about cause I opened it...