This one kind of hurts. I liked Google Inbox. Many people did, and most reviews were positive
to prove it. There was also a general outcry when it shut down.
It almost got me to enjoy email altogether. And then, of course, Google turned it off.
Back to square one, to traditional and burdensome email. If you think the Gmail app is friendly
enough these days, just know that it is largely thanks to Inbox.
Features like snoozing messages, auto-generated bundles, or the somewhat creepy but helpful
suggestions of smart replies; were first implemented on the Inbox app. And, somehow, they felt
more organic and fresher than now on Gmail.
So, let's remember yet another addition to Google's prolific list of deceased projects
and companies. One that was good and ultimately got sacrificed to make Gmail what it is today.
Welcome to Company Forensics.
Reinventing the wheel
I guess there can only be so much innovation when it comes to email. At the end of the
day, it is what it is. Still, simple as it is, receiving and sending emails can become
an actual burden amid our frantic, digital lives. Achieving the so-called “Inbox Zero”
sounds like reaching Nirvana or being enlightened.
Some deal better with email than others, and that's alright. Just, please don't have hundreds
or thousands of emails sitting there, unread, untouched. That red badge on Gmail's icon
with a four-digit number of unseen emails is just pain to me.
But you do you. Honestly, the process of customizing and fine-tuning Gmail to work for you and
not against you is more cumbersome than it should. It's a tricky mix of filters, labels,
categories, stars, and rules that only the true warriors of productivity manage to tame.
At this point, we've succumbed to it and don't expect the wheel to be reinvented. But back
in 2014, Google still found room for innovation and came up with Inbox.
In 2004, they created Gmail. The email client that just swallowed all competitors and became
the norm, maybe along with Outlook.
Gmail standardized the email experience for a decade, to the point where it started to
feel stale and lifeless. So, ten years later, they set out to rethink it and came up with
Inbox. And it was good.
A breath of fresh email
Inbox was its own stand-alone email service, independent from Gmail. It had its own mobile
app and worked on desktop too. At first sight, it was colorful but not annoying. The view
of messages grouped in Bundles was way more inviting than the overwhelmingly plain list
of messages on Gmail's default view.
Bundles were basically those categories that Gmail now gives by default, such as Promotions,
Social, Updates, and so on. Inbox innovated with this smart grouping of emails, and it
felt useful and intuitive back then. Maybe it was the charm of the first time seeing
how machine learning organized our emails.
But Inbox also had a series of integrations with other Google tools, like Reminders and
the ever-intrusive, ever-helpful Google Now. Those two Google projects morphed into Tasks
and Google Assistant, respectively.
This made it the go-to productivity app for many, as it seamlessly integrated email with
reminders, billing, social, and more.
The app was immersed in the Material Design line of thought that Google also came up with
that year. They created this design system to help developers and designers build more
streamlined experiences within Google’s ecosystem, for Android, iOS, and the web.
Among other things, it made index cards pretty relevant and interactive in the user interface.
So, on top of categorizing your emails, Inbox would let you interact with them through a
series of cards with relevant actions, accessible at a glance.
For example, if you were a traveler, Inbox automatically compiled all travel-related
confirmations and created interactive trip bundles. These bundles presented an overview
of your plans for upcoming and past trips through these cards. It would also organize
invoices, and so on.
The magic of snooze
Besides the colorful and interactive design, Inbox was the first to bring the magic of
snooze to emails. Well, maybe not the very first one.
Interestingly enough, before Inbox came out, another email app picked up steam and launched
in 2013. It was Mailbox, and it seems to have been the first one to implement snooze for
emails. Apparently, a teaser video of the app generated much interest and hundreds of
thousands of pre-registration requests from people interested in
trying it out.
Its sSimilar to how Superhuman has reimagined the email experience nowadays, and created
much hype with its invite-only access. But not everyone is willing to pay $30/mo for
an email app.
The release of Mailbox was a success back then. Shortly, Dropbox acquired it for around
$100 million, only to discontinue it a couple of years later.
But besides snoozing, Mailbox had other distinctive features that Google's Inbox, suspiciously
enough, also had. Like the swipe gestures used to deal with emails on the app.
A simple left swipe over an email would let you snooze it for later. And you could choose
from preset snooze times or customize when you wanted to deal with that specific email.
You know, maybe you didn't want to archive it or mark it as read (or as unread, for that
matter), but you couldn't get to it at the moment.
This simple action and the bundling of messages made all the difference in alleviating the
email experience. An Inbox reviewer for Fast Company said it perfectly, back in 2017:
"Once you adapt to this snooze-centric mentality, your Inbox stops being so overwhelming. You
never have a gigantic buildup of tasks to master; instead, items appear little by little
at appropriate times. And if you're ever too busy to process 'em, all you've gotta do is
hit snooze again."
And then, swiping an email to the right would let you archive it. These swipes are also
present in today's G mail, although not the snooze one. To snooze an email, now you have
to go through a couple of taps or clicks, and it's not as natural as the swipe and not
so exciting.
It no longer feels like a new approach to dealing with emails but just another Gmail
setting to tweak.
Goodbye, cool email
So, after four years of experimentation and delighting users, in late 2018, Google announced
that it was shutting down Inbox.
They didn't give many explanations and just said they would focus more on improving Gmail
for everyone, applying some of the lessons learned from Inbox.
The notification that started showing up on the app was a slap in the face for users.
"This app will be going away in 15 days... You can find your favorite inbox features
in the Gmail app".
And that was it. In April 2019, Inbox was turned off. Its army of devoted users was
forced to go back to Gmail and learn how to hate email again. Alright, maybe not hate
it, but definitely go back to a more conventional and unexciting way of going about their email.
And yes, Gmail has many of Inbox's features, but it's not the same. I won't get into the
details of why, but if you had Inbox, you'd probably agree. And if you didn't, well, I'm
glad Gmail has become better for you. Probably.