Last week, Google launched a new email service called Inbox. If you’re new to Inbox or just confused about what it does and how it works, here’s what we’ve found after a week of using it as a daily driver.
Currently, the inbox is invite-only at the moment, but invites seem to be sent out at a steady rate (and there are workarounds).
forget what you know (or: email as a to-do list)
Before we dive into the features of the inbox, it’s helpful to address what the inbox is. The first problem most people probably have is that they don’t know what the buttons do. For example, when Whitson first signed up, he asked me “what does it mean to mark an email as ‘done’? mark it as read? archive it?”
These questions have answers. the inbox still syncs with gmail and has an effect on how email is handled there. however, the question is the bigger problem. Terms like “marked as read” and “archived” are deliberately removed. instead, the inbox treats your emails as to-dos. the app assumes (perhaps rightly so) that you need to do something with each email. some are critical pieces of information that you need to classify or reserve, some demand answers, and some let you know that you need to do something outside of your inbox, like pay a bill. In all those cases, “reading” an email doesn’t mean you’re done with it, so why treat it as such?
In this author’s opinion, that’s the key distinction that makes everything else fall into place. while using inbox, try to avoid translating new functionality into old terminology. We’ll explain what the buttons do in the backend (in case you’re going back to gmail, you don’t want to mess up the whole flow), but the best way to dive into your inbox is head first, without looking back.
the three kinds of email: pinned, postponed, or terminated
With the inbox, you are given a few options for handling email. The three main actions you can take on emails are to pin them, snooze them, or mark them as done. Here’s what those three functions do (as well as their counterparts in gmail proper):
- pin: When you pin an email, it gets a more prominent placement in your inbox. if it was part of a package (which we’ll talk about later), it will be given its own line to make it more visible. There’s also a big switch at the top of the app on all platforms to only show pinned emails. if it’s something you’ll need to come back to, like a trip confirmation, reference documents, or an important conversation, pinning it is probably the right way to go. there is no gmail counterpart to pin.
- sleep: boomerang users will be familiar with the idea of putting an email off until later. you may need an email, but not necessarily right now. inbox allows you to snooze it so it disappears from your inbox and comes back later. You can specify a specific time, use vague presets like “tomorrow afternoon,” or let Google decide with a “someday” option for things you don’t want to deal with right now, but aren’t time-sensitive. if you view your inbox in gmail, snooze messages will be archived.
- done: this is for when you no longer need a message. marking an email as “done” removes it from your inbox or visible packages. you can still search for it, but it won’t mess everything up. in gmail this also archives your messages and the functionality is similar in inbox.
There are other inbox features (and we’ll cover them), but these are the main ways you should handle emails. either you need it now, you need it later, or you don’t need it. seems pretty straightforward.
staying organized: reminders and packages
reminders
snooze an email to remind you later only displays the message when you need it. reminders, however, allow you to take notes for your future self. receive a promotional email with something you really want to buy? set a reminder for “christmas gift for x”. the reminder will be included next to the email itself.
of course, google now users will recognize the reminders. You can also use your phone, tablet, watch, or probably your brain soon to set natural language reminders like “remind me to pay my bills when I get home.” if you use those reminders, they will now also appear in your inbox. since the inbox treats entries as a to-do, and reminders to yourself are presumably things that need to be done as well, they line up together.
packages
The combination of reminders, emails, and the additional information cards that your inbox adds can make it difficult to analyze the information. that’s where packets come in. packages group related emails in your inbox. For example, promotional emails from Amazon, Newegg, and Apple would be bundled into a single collapsible package. you can also mark an entire package as “done” with a button.
packages combine smart gmail tags, filters and tabs all in one. this is where things get a little weird. Your old tabs, like promotions and updates (as well as some new ones), are packages created by Google with their own special rules that you can train or override. your old tags are imported, but they work much more like folders. adding a message to one of your existing labels manually will remove it from the inbox altogether. all of these old tags are now in a category called “unbundled” in the sidebar.
You can also create your own packages from existing tags or by creating new ones. click the label in the sidebar, and in the action bar at the top, click settings. here you can create rules for this tag. when you do this, it makes it a package for all future emails. while in gmail, filters and labels were separate things, here they are directly linked.
From now on, any email you receive that meets these rules will behave the same as google packages in terms of grouping. your inbox will automatically put all new emails you receive that fit your filters into a collapsible package. you can also access them from the sidebar. Unfortunately, one drawback compared to labels is that you can’t apply this to previous emails.
beyond email: embed information and google now
One of the latest and greatest features of Inbox is that it aims to give you the information you need without having to dive into an email or look elsewhere for information. flight information emails will show the status of your flight. emails with attached photos will embed the photos in your inbox, rather than prompting you to open the message directly.
This is all fine (although in my experience, info cards rarely appear in typical emails). However, it also means that if you’re not a fan of Google Now or data scanning, Inbox may not be for you. These smart features are built into the app and are not optional. There is no button anywhere to request that Google not show you suggestions based on the content of your email. if that bothers you, skip the inbox.
For everything else, though, the inbox is a great new approach to email. the service understands that you’re not just reading your email, but doing things with it. You also understand that you get a lot of emails and need to sort things out quickly. For a modern, productive world, it makes far more sense to mark an email as “done” than “read.”