Ex-Googlers resurrect Google Inbox interface as Shortwave email | Ars Technica

Is that Google Inbox? Nope, that

reader comments

Google Inbox has been dead for almost three years, but people haven’t forgotten. Google promised to bring many of Inbox’s innovations to its surviving email client, Gmail, but never actually did. If you still miss your inbox and how easy it was to manage email, maybe it’s time to venture out of Google’s customer offerings.

Meet “shortwave”, a new email launch from some old google users that exactly replicates the google inbox interface. all the important inbox innovations are back: emails are collected into “packages” called things like “updates”, “promotions” and “social”, and messages can also be sorted by age. Most importantly, the “sweep” button is back, allowing you to mark multiple emails in a package as “done” with a single click.

The sweep button archives every email in a section.

The sweep button was Inbox’s biggest productivity booster, and it’s still something Gmail has never replicated. Gmail has a “check all” button, but that’s unintelligently going to select everything on the page. Sweep lets you easily banish anything in an entire section. Gmail has a mode that sorts email by category, but it places those categories into totally separate tabs, and you can never scan your whole inbox from one page. Inbox and Shortwave put bundled emails and regular emails in a single page, so you can see everything. The two user interfaces mostly have the same ingredients, but Shortwave and Inbox are focused on productivity, while Gmail takes multiple clicks on multiple pages.

See Also:  How to make gmail display mail in basic html

Shortwave actually isn’t a standalone email service yet. Just like Inbox, it’s an alternative client for Gmail. On one hand, this means it’s super easy to try out. On the other hand, you’ll need to grant this app access to your Gmail account and all your mail. That’s a scary proposition coming from a new company, but the people behind Shortwave are reputable. The project was cooked up by a bunch of ex-Googlers from the Firebase push-messaging division. The monetization strategy also isn’t evil: like Slack, Shortwave is free to use with limited 90-day access to your email history. Unlimited email history through search and the “all mail” page requires signing up for the “standard” plan, which is $9 per person, per month. The free version has no ads, and Shortwave’s privacy policy says it “does not sell Personal Data.”

The sweep button archives every email in a section.

There are also numerous quality-of-life improvements, like “snooze” and “pin” buttons (again ripped straight from Inbox), undo send, and a do-not-disturb setting for notifications. There’s an iOS app and desktop PWA, but the one thing you can ding Shortwave for right now is the Android app. It exists but only as a “work-in-progress” “beta” app that, at the moment, mostly seems to be recycled webpage code. The iOS app looks great and native, but the Android app isn’t there yet. It’s serviceable if you just want to get notifications, swipe away bundles of emails, and read some things. But the Android version would look much better as a native app.

See Also:  How to Contact Chase Bank Customer Service - FairShake

I’m surprised that the startup mindset requires that even when they’re a bunch of ex-googlers cloning a dead google product, they still can’t prioritize google’s phone app. life is hard for android users.

I’m surprised that a company with this type of business model currently doesn’t have any email hosting of its own and runs everything through the gmail service. but I’m sure company hosted email is on the roadmap somewhere. At the very least, the service is very easy to try and you can relive the glory days of Google Inbox. if you like shortwave, maybe you’ll stay.

shortwave listing image

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *