This assumes an inbox is a type of "project" that needs to be "completed". It's structured on the concept of removing messages from my screen until there is nothing left for me to "do".<p>My inbox is often more of a conversation that I fade in and out of. Sometimes it resembles a facebook feed. Granted, I'm not a type A personality, but not all email is has to be "done" anymore than all reading books need to be "done". They can be continuous reference or contemplation for a time.<p>I guess it depends on if we are talking about work email or personal email. Perhaps even more, it's just about perception.
This is really cool, and nice design!<p>I work at Nylas and would love to incorporate some of this into N1, which is an open source mail app we built that also uses Electron. (<a href="https://nylas.com/n1" rel="nofollow">https://nylas.com/n1</a>).<p>If the author's hanging out in this thread, feel free to email me :) We could also make it work for non-Gmail using our open source IMAP stack!
Is email really broken or are people looking for things to change?<p>Reason I ask is because I see this "let's fix email" so often, peeps build something new then it either gets acquired & killed or goes no where.<p>What if email isn't broken. Instead email as we think we see it is merely a feed with or without action and its up to us to manage it.<p>PlainEmail appears like an attempt of changing our habits of reading a feed with GTD concepts. I'd much rather prefer to see my feed and an algo/machine learning identify action emails and suggest to me the best method (GTD or not) to handle it. Otherwise I'd carry on with my usual habits.
This is exactly what I need, I've been hoping for years for someone to create this. I even tried to do my own mutt installation to have a terminal / simple like e-mail.<p>I'd even go as far as removing the mouse and only doing keyboard shortcuts. Do not include attachments or images. I love it's full screen.<p>This will not be for everyone, and that is really OK, this is for people that must respond to a lot of emails very quickly, even if they are not on e-mail all day. I just spent 2 days going through actionable 475 unread e-mails (not newsletters, or spam)<p>I've always thought, software developers have vim, but there's nothing for business developers.<p>Thank you very much for creating this. If you will charge, I will gladly pay.<p>Take my money!
Let's try a bit of wordsmithing.<p>Either stick to the 4 D's of GTD: Delete, Do, Delegate, Defer; or use the commonplace terms: Archive, Reply, Forward, Snooze. When you do this, do you start to realize how similar it looks to existing email clients?<p>By the way you say there is no Snooze button- then what is Defer?<p>And one-touch, not "single-touch."
I treat emails as open loops. I currently have four in my inbox representing three open loops. I consider "inbox zero" to be a counter-productive strategy focused on the wrong things.<p>I still do GTD-style triage, but I'm more willing to let stuff sit in queues. Inevitably I get sick of looking at it and do something about it, moving it into a backlog or working out a way to just do it right now.<p>But my life isn't one where more productivity would really net me all that many life improvements. Generally, if I can visualize a pathway to a real life improvement, motivation to get it done is not an issue.<p>My life generally consists of trying to solve really hard, complicated situations using mostly intuition. Staring at something sitting in a queue is often all I need to get that intuition going. "Why do I want this? How does this connect to other parts of my life?"
Although there's a strong "email sucks" sentiment in the world, I believe the truth is that email is a complex system that has actually already evolved quite well. Gmail is quite an adept tool.<p>The inherent issue is volume - which isn't per-se the fault of the medium. Filtering and categorization has been the primary answer there - and those things (including this post) have helped evolve those issues.
Ah, this concept reminds me of one of the first apps I did, years ago, called EmptyInbox - <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/emptyinbox-for-gmail/id509942554?mt=8" rel="nofollow">https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/emptyinbox-for-gmail/id50994...</a> (Yay skeuomorphism!)<p>It only supports GMail, but still works as far as I know. Back then it was the only app I knew that had that concept, but by now there is Triage, plus most modern mail clients have the "swipe" actions for quickly getting through emails.
Honestly I don't know why people keep trying to do this kind of thing: reinventing email. Email works fine and nothing has been able to replace it (e.g., Google Wave, Mailbox, etc). I think the reason is that email works fine for most people. And if it isn't, a new tool to help you manage it isn't going to fix your problems. It'll probably just create new ones.<p>The answer to "my inbox is crazy" is to work through your inbox - if there's too much for you to work through then you need to do less. That's it.
I like the approach! I'm a GTD user and would love for the app to integrate with OmniFocus, meaning that defer and delegate are added to the appropriate place within my contexts and projects.
Good stuff.<p>Why did you use "respond" instead of "reply"? It's just as descriptive, and is the canonical term. It takes mental overhead to parse new terminology.<p>And I see the business angle in "delegate", but forwarding isn't always for purposes of delegation.<p>Maybe this:
Dismiss Sleep Forward Reply
I believe I'll have the same problem with this app that I have with Kindle -- the lack of flipability in the name of apparent convenience and simplicity.<p>There is an unspoken importance in an inbox glance, in seeing a list of "undone" email and getting a gist of things. There is a similar feeling in flipping pages of an entire book.<p>Imagine being in a room where you only see one object at a time, you can either use it or defer it for a later time. Simple? Yes. Will I hope to stumble upon a gun to put in my mouth? Indeed.<p>There is a magic in looking at the world and <i>deciding</i> on what to do. It's much faster, efficient, and satisfying.
I just downloaded it. I like "response", "delegate", and "defer", and "unsubscribe".<p>I do not like that is only runs in fullscreen, but I think I get why you're doing it.<p>I current use Google Inbox and set my default "done" action to delete. You should support the notion of "done forever".<p>I maybe keep 10% of the email I receive. Having a heavy hand with deletion forces me to think about the value of the communication and to capture the important actions and details in my todo system.
The days of open source propaganda are long gone, at least for me. But this sounds like a thing that should be put into open source, in a way that not just the own gui can use it but that other email client creators can integrate it as well (i.e. a library). We've seen so many email clients come and go, having a single app do that is not enough to stay in the game.
Just a heads up, my workplace McAfee Web Gateway filters this website under the category "Phishing" with a "Medium Risk" reputation. Perhaps the previous domain owner wasn't the most reputable. Not sure what you have to do to get off of McAfee's list, but wanted to mention it as it might keep people from being able to visit your site.
Would be intersting to be able to tag the email as it's being marked "Done". It's the GTD analogy of filing it away. Yes full-text search can turn up almost anything but a tag may help for smartmailboxes or further post-processing work.
I really liked Mailbox (later acquired by Dropbox). It was clean, easy, zero inbox with one million user signups at the beginning and what happened to them? Went to the kitchen sink... I expect the same from this.
This takes actions you could perform on dozens of e-mails at once [via checkboxes] and makes it one-at-a-time. Seems inefficient.<p>Also, I'm not hooking up with people via e-mail, so perhaps drop the Tinder comparison.
Cool product. From a design perspective I really love the website, you've done extremely well. Just a small note I believe the typography could be improved by implementing more headers.
I was hoping that this was going to be about using plaintext emails. It's pretty cool, though. I have a very similar workflow with mutt and a few keybindings.
Triage: <a href="http://triage.cc" rel="nofollow">http://triage.cc</a><p>Same idea. Quickly clean out your inbox, with a Tinder-like UI. It works well.
Why this website needs 11 javascript, 12 css & 6 font files?<p>Numbers from <a href="http://www.webpagetest.org" rel="nofollow">http://www.webpagetest.org</a>
* Email software
* Main design aesthetical feature is whitespace
* Generic name
* Monochromatic gradient
* Modern typestack
* Rounded buttons
* Made with heart emojis<p>This landing page and design could have been generated by software that intentionally crafted status quo product examples, and I would not be able to tell it apart from something legitimately created.<p>This is a product of the times, not a product pushing the our times forward. It really is like the output of a Markov chain product generator.