My first reactions to Google's new email app, Inbox, boiled down to one
part frustration, one part irritation. It's meant to make your life
easier, but it's more complicated to use than Google's
Gmail app.
With Inbox, you keep your Gmail email address and contacts. The Inbox app adds organizational tools.
For
many people, email is a place to store information. I rely on it for
bills, shopping-delivery updates and travel plans. Inbox aims to improve
on Gmail's information warehouse by automatically categorizing messages
by subject and making them available to you at a time you prefer. It's
also meant to help you search more easily on your phone.
Problem
is, understanding how to use Inbox isn't intuitive. I spent hours
fiddling with it and had assistance from Google that most people
wouldn't have. Even after a few weeks, I still spend more time managing
my email than I did with the Gmail app.
Nonetheless, I do plan on using Inbox as my primary email app because it is better at searching through emails.
Inbox
is available on Apple and Android phones and Google's Chrome browser on
traditional computers. The free app is technically by invite only, but
it didn't take long to get mine at http://inbox.google.com . You need a
Gmail account to use it.
Organization
My Gmail app already
sorts my email into categories: Bills, travel reservations and
appointments typically wind up in Updates, while mailing-list items go
to Promotions. The rest go to Primary.
Inbox goes further and
calls these categories "bundles": Travel, Purchases, Finance, Social,
Updates, Forums and Promos. You can also create your own labels - mine
include Pics, Work, Links and Taxes - to supposedly sort future emails
automatically.
Problem
The distinctions between Google's bundles are subtle, and it doesn't always sort emails as I would like them.
And
for my own labels, forget it. I often have to move emails manually to
their proper place, although that could improve as Inbox learns my
preferences.
One feature lets you hide messages from certain
bundles so you're not inundated all day. For instance, I could set
Promos to appear only once a day at 7 a.m., or even just Mondays at 7
a.m. However, that 7 a.m. reveal time can't be changed. I also ended up
missing emails I would have liked to see right away because I restricted
some bundles too much. Yes, you can manually check all your bundles,
but that defeats the purpose of this feature.
Message management
There's "pinning," ''sweeping," ''done" and "snoozing" functions for every email. (Eyes cross.)
Done,
a check mark, is like archiving in Gmail. "Done" messages are arranged
in the order you marked them Done, rather than the order you received
them.
Sweeping sends a bunch of emails to Done. I accidentally
shuttled my entire inbox to Done (which was alarmingly easy to do) and
then found myself with a Done list topped by my oldest emails, from
2005. My Done list is now a mishmash, although I can still search for
specific items. Items can be moved back to the main inbox, though.
Pinning
keeps a message in your inbox. I pinned messages that contained
upcoming dinner plans or needed immediate replies from me. If you
receive masses of new emails, you can press a blue button up top to look
at only the items you pinned.
Snooze hides an email and brings it back at a time you pick.
So what's the benefit?
Creating
labels that separate out photos from dinner plans is nice, but I
usually have to manually sort them. Plus, I can already add my own label
in the Gmail app.
As for auto-sorting, I prefer the Primary,
Updates and Promotions tabs that already exist within Gmail. If there's a
sorting error, it's easier to drag-and-drop emails in Gmail than change
the bundle in Inbox.
I also like seeing precise time elements for all emails, which Inbox wipes out.
Reminders
Google
thinks that writing yourself reminder posts is better than emailing
yourself about things you need to do. Reminders are easy to create, but
can get lost. I would prefer that reminders float to the top of my
inbox, but they drift lower as other emails come in. You can pin a
reminder to prioritize it.
I ended up emailing myself the
information I had in a reminder anyway to connect it to the actions I
had taken for that task. I also have a simple note-taking app on my
phone that I find more convenient as a to-do list.
Search
This is Inbox's selling point. It's easier and faster at finding stuff.
With
Gmail, a search of one friend's name and "phone" brings up 51 emails,
with subject lines including "Thanks," ''hiya" and "Itinerary for your
upcoming trip." I have to open one email after another looking for her
phone number. With Inbox, the same search terms gets you the phone
number right away. You can dial the number right then.
It's the
same with flights. Upcoming and past airline reservations pop up in
boxes of their own, with their flight numbers, destinations and flight
times.
In Inbox, attachments and photos also pop out, and keywords
are highlighted without having to open emails. I can use Inbox to
easily find username information that I've emailed myself for various
online accounts.
I haven't found that Inbox manages my incoming
messages better than Gmail did. But given how often I search my emails,
the time I save not having to open thousands of them when looking for
nuggets of information makes Inbox worthwhile.
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