Review: Inbox by Gmail

Few days ago I read about this new app from Google called “Inbox by Gmail”. It’s basically another app with another interface for us to open our Gmail. Google already has Gmail app in iOS and Android as a good email client. Why do they need to create a new app instead of just updating their current Gmail app? Well, apparently this new app called Inbox is a bit different. And they probably don’t want to force everyone to embrace their new “way” of accessing email. So Google made this app available for limited number of people through invitation system.

After waiting for few days to receive invitation, yesterday I finally got an email from Google, with my invitation. I downloaded the new Inbox app and started exploring this new email client.

If you have used the new Gmail interface in desktop computer, you might realize that Gmail uses an algorithm to automatically categorize our incoming emails into some “bundles” like Promotions, Updates, Social, and Forums. Well, this Inbox app is basically trying to bring the same concept into mobile and develop it a little bit further. When I opened Inbox app in my iPhone, it automatically puts some of my emails into those “bundles”. The idea is cool and supposedly can help people to stay organized. The problem is… their automatic algorithm sucks. A lot of my emails got into wrong bundles. We can remove some emails from some bundles and “teach” the algorithm. Removing an email from a bundle will bring a prompt whether we want to classify future emails into a new bundle. However, the only “factor” it uses is the sender’s email address. If I use this method, emails from the same sender will always get the same treatment. In real usage, this does not always produce desirable results.

The next feature it offers is the ability to “snooze” an email or to make it as “done”. This is probably the best feature that I might actually use. It is very common that some of our incoming emails require us to do something. I’m sure most people have aat least 1 or 2 experience of forgetting to follow up an email. This new feature could be very useful to make sure that we don’t forget to do the follow up actions of important emails.

Inbox also allows us to “pin” some emails. This is basically just another form of “flag”. Might be useful for some people, but not for me.

Other than bundles, Inbox has built-in capability to “detect” if some emails are “low priority”. Again, this feature sucks. I got plenty of important emails being dumped into that category.

Next, we have Reminder feature. Well, this is basically a reminder, a to do list, integrated in our email client. Depending on each person’s habit in using email, this could be useful or could be irrelevant.

This email client automatically displays some of our attachment files in the email list when it thinks the files are important. Some specific emails like our flight booking is displayed more informatively.

After using Inbox for almost two days, I quickly love the ability to snooze my emails so I can do follow up later. But I really hate its consistent mistakes in “organizing” my emails into bundles. If I can disable the automatic bundle and simply use it for the snooze feature, this app will quickly becomes my new primary app for email. Hopefully Google will improve its automatic bundle algorithm up to a point where it’s actually usable. Until then, I choose not to waste time and risk to miss important emails.

If yo haven’t got your invitation yet, there are 2 ways to get an invitation. First, send an email (any email) to inbox@google.com and wait for your invitation. Second, you can ask your friend who can already use Inbox app to invite you. Existing Inbox users get limited amount of invitations every-day. Finally, even if your friend has run out of invitation quota, he can still help you to access Inbox with an easy trick: download Inbox app, ask him to login to his account and open his email, then add your account (Inbox app supports multiple email accounts, just like Gmail app). Your account will gain access to the Inbox app now. Don’t forget to remove your friend’s account from your phone afterwards. It’s worth to notice that if you gain access to Inbox app using this trick, you will not get the quota to invite other friends. But Google might change this in the future.

Lastly, if you need an invitation, drop a comment below with your email address and I will invite you IF I still have extra invitation quota for the day.