Mailbox
A hands on look at the smart new email management app for iOS and Gmail
The volume of email we all receive has gotten out of control and managing messages can become a full time job. To wrangle the task and keep subsequent anxiety levels in check, we welcome the soon-to-launch iPhone app Mailbox. After a few short weeks of testing we’ve come to value, if not rely on the new app for its ability to help focus on what matters most in the moment. On the surface Mailbox looks and feels like a standard Gmail inbox. On closer look the clever app utilizes swipe movements to offer the usual delete and archive options while also introducing message rearranging and “snooze buttons” to put off messages until later—a solution that makes getting through a triple digit inbox possible in moments.
Mailbox syncs with any number of Gmail accounts, with the option to converge all mail into a single inbox. The user is free to move messages around to different folders, mark as read or unread, archive and even make them disappear for any number of predetermined minutes, days or hours. This is really where the app stands out. If you’re out and about and an important email comes in, swipe to completely hide the message only to have it later return to your inbox as unread—with the original time stamp—and ready to be dealt with.
If using folders or the “snooze” function isn’t for you, the ability to simply move messages up or down in the mailbox timeline allows for creating to-do lists of sorts. And all movements made in Mailbox also affect your accounts in their native formats so you won’t be confused when switching between web clients and Mailbox. An important note to make is that while Mailbox syncs with accounts Mailbox is very mindful of privacy and does not store any of your info on their servers. All data moved is encrypted and inaccessible to Mailbox.
Set to officially launch around the first of the New Year, Mailbox is still under development. And considering it’s from the same team that made the award-winning app Orchestra To-Do we know the final product is going to be worth noting. Visit Mailbox online directly to learn more.
