I wrote a review of the Inbox on facebook (that was my deal with the person that invited me). Cross-posting here if it interests you.

My review of Google's new Inbox, based on two hours of use (thanks [redacted] for the invite).

First the good parts: 1. I really like bundles. The idea that I can "Sweep" all the promotional emails I get in one click fills me with glee (and marketers with anxiety, I imagine). It's also nice to have all the travel related emails in one place. Never again am I going to be confused whether I should be going to SFO or SJC.

2. I like the new compose. My emails are too long (both those I write and those you do), and I'm praying that showing just one line to write a response will make emails briefer.

3. Snooze/procrastinate: How I like the idea of "someday". Combined with my own future discounting, I'm not going to feel guilty about not responding anymore.

The not-so-good parts:

1. Boy is this opinionated software! There is an inexorable push to empty your inbox. I guess I'll like it if I get with the program.

2. It's too pretty. No, seriously. The title-bar is too bright, there are too many people's faces, too many colors and font styles. I like my email drab so I can focus on what people are saying and not get distracted by the colors.

That's all I see with two hours of use. Oh, also, I don't know how to invite people yet. If someone tells me, I'm happy to invite y'all.

edit: formatting.

My review of Inbox, based on about 4 hours of use:

#. I hate Bundles. I rarely if ever have more than 5 emails in my inbox. Hiding things from me is counterproductive.

#. WAY too bright and big. Regular gmail fits 3x as much information in the same space, and I was already unhappy with how bright and big regular gmail is.

#. Love snooze. I've been using boomerang for ages.

#. No idea where the compose-suggestions are coming from; they're for people I haven't communicated with since before gmail even came out.

#. In general, just feels very clunky compared to Gmail.

Why are you concerned with the amount of information it can hold if you only ever have 5 emails in your inbox?

TO what extent does it use ML for all the clustering? Does it work all of the times?

I can not imagine what'd happen if it doesn't work all of the times?

I like the colors aspect though and and would love to try it out.

If you still have some invites left send out one to [email protected]

I think the clustering either has been trained very well, or uses a very conservative rule-based system. It seems to work great!

I can't edit this original post, but it seems I can't invite people yet; will update when I do.

> Oh, also, I don't know how to invite people yet.

Its from the create (+) button, but I don't think you necessarily start with invites right away, and I don't think it shows the Invite option after you hit the create button unless you have invites.

At least, I'm assuming that's why I've never seen the invite button in my Inbox (app or web) even though I've seen the instructions on the support page.

On the plus side, it only took me a few hours to get an invite from Google just by emailing [email protected].

I'm not sure if you have any invites left, but if you do, here is a link to the support page that has directions on sharing an invite:

https://support.google.com/inbox/answer/6067582?p=invite_req...

Once you get Inbox, you'll have invites to send to your friends. Here's how to send an invite:

1. Open Inbox. 2. In the bottom right, go to the Create button . 3. Choose Invite to Inbox .

If you could do that for me, I would be grateful! (banderon1 "at" gmail "dot" com)

This sounds interesting - I've been waiting for a while for Google to use more ML on the client side in g-mail.

I would really appreciate an invite at inglor at gmail dot com?

If you still have an invite, I'd really like one:

bertrand dot chardon at gmail dot com

Thank you very much.

Interesting review. It almost sounds odd that someone likes the new "Compose" in a Google product...

If you can spare an invite, I'd be glad to try it out: ozhozh at gmail dot com -- thanks in any case.

Would love one if anyone has it. [email protected] . Also, I would share mine. thanks in advance. Cheers

code_ Will you please have an invite for google Inbox to share, please? [email protected]

Thanks,

if you have an invite send me thx: [email protected]

if any invites are going out I'd be happy to take one [email protected]

Any invites for google inbox, pretty please?

If you still have an invite, I would appreciate it. bkrishnan at gmail dot com

I'd appreciate an invite as well. [email protected]

If you happen to have intives and you are able to send, could you send me one too? Thank you. My e-mail: [email protected]

Hi, would appreciate an invite..... [email protected] thanks!

If you have an invite for google inbox, will you please share it with me, please? [email protected]

Thanks, Alex

Does it work across accounts? For instance, I have a personal email and a university email that is gmail-based. I believe they are already linked account-wise, but having to manually swap between both inboxes in gmail is a constant annoyance.

Edit: "Across" in the sense that everything comes in one workflow, and isn't two separate workflows. I dislike having to back out and select a new account to see each set of emails.

It doesn't integrate multiple accounts into a single inbox, if that's what you mean. It works the same as Gmail in that respect.

That's a massive shame.

Weird that Mailbox/Dropbox manages to do it with Gmail, but Google doesn't.

I believe it's intentional (for privacy/usability reasons), so that it's always clear which account's emails you are reading and which you are replying to. I don't think it's a technical issue.

I've certainly been caught out in that regard before.

But a 'advanced options' ability with a stern warning would be useful to many.

In general Google tends to keep accounts siloed, if for no other reason than that different accounts is the solution recommended to people who want to silo things.

Why don't you just have your emails forwarded from one account to another?

That defeats the point of separate emails...

Not really, given that you can quite easily filter emails that you receive from your other address. I use exactly this workflow and it's much more useful than having them in separate inboxes (i.e. doesn't "defeat the purpose").

I tried it and found I constantly was sending email from the wrong account. While that's on me, it was evident I was never going to get it right either, so I went back to separate accounts.

To do the trick, you have to add the account as "not an alias" (you will have to add the gmail smpt and so) and later, select the reply "Reply from the same address to which the message was sent".

I did that. It was remembering to switch the account when composing new messages. I ended up sending work emails from my personal account on a few occasions.

I meant going to Accounts and choosing the "Reply from... radio". That way it will always choose the "destination email" as reply.

Right. That works great. The problem is when I was composing a new email.

Just in case you didn't see it, and weren't just talking about composing new emails, there is an option in the settings to send replies from the account that received the email.

Thanks. That was a very handy feature. Alas, it was when composing new emails. I'm sure with more diligence it'll come as second nature. But when rapid firing through emails I'd sometimes send from the wrong account and end up in confusing and embarrassing situations.

I bet his university's Gmail has auto-lookup for contacts.

Mailbox is an all-in-one email client. Gmail is a webmail client for your (singular) Gmail account.

Gmail on mobile (both Android and iOS) both handle multiple Gmail accounts gracefully (personal, google apps, etc). To merge them seamlessly in the interface would be trivial.

In this case I was talking about Inbox, which in my mind should be a all-in-one gmail inbox.

To my understanding, the future of "enterprise support" for Android is that you'll be able to install multiple copies of the same app and one will be personal and the other work.

This is how BlackBerry 10 devices handle the difference between personal and work applications. Al though, it's just one application running two instances with app data in two different locations.

You'll still have to go in and out accounts as you do now, but Gmails "Send As" feature came over, so that might help?

OK, I'll have to look into that feature. Thanks for answering!

but be aware, "send as" isn't disguising the base email.account in the free gmail-non-business-version: e.g. outlook shows which smtp-server was used.

MS Outlook (since v2003) provides the same (?) useful feature out of the box.

ToDo's based on emails, chat, sms, (or any other msg obj) and metadata based filters are very useful.

I created dozends of advanced filters in GMail in 2006, as my first account grew to 5 GB (thanks to about 20 of mailing list) in 2009 my GMail account got unbearable slow. I had to create a new account (the advanced filters are still there, but there is no intuitive UI anymore, you have to type in their syntax). I occacionally login to my old account and it is still dog slow - so I have my doubts that advanced filter scale in GMail/Inbox.

First: Why do you think they created a completely new app rather than integrating features into the gmail app one by one? I understand it has a good integration of Google Now in it, but Google Now itself works very nice for me (Like showing important stuff from my gmail). Thanks!

Every time they add features to gmail, people on forums like this one scream "OH MY GOD GOOGLE LITERALLY KILLED MY SISTER". It's a lot less irritating to make major changes in a new product.

I'm not a PM so I can't speak to the decision itself, but I don't think grafting on the Inbox workflow to the Gmail interface would have worked out. It would have made both of them very muddled, and given the impression Inbox has more flexibility that it really wants to give.

Two apps using the same backend data (you can switch between Gmail and Inbox if you like) seems a better fit.

> Why do you think they created a completely new app rather than integrating features into the gmail app one by one?

As I see it, it lets people wanting to try the new thing do so, but has zero effect on people happy with what Gmail does now who don't want to be distracted either by more option clutter or the features themselves.

Further, it lets people wanting to use the new workflow do so without clutter from the regular Gmail interface (and being a more focussed interface is the key "interesting feature".)

It's too different from Gmail to be integrated into it. It coexists with Gmail so that you can choose to use Inbox and its "opinionated" workflow, or not. Users who like their personal Gmail workflow probably wouldn't appreciate having that flexibility taken away if it's not aligned with how Inbox wants you to work.

Because for many people that would be the final straw to push them out from Gmail, leading to them leaving Google completely, since once Gmail is gone, there's hardly a reason to keep Google account anymore.

From ethnographic research, this is a good move by Google. People enjoy a blank slate or 'fresh start'. By starting from Inbox 0, people can enjoy that feeling. Contrast this with integrating into Gmail where people have thousands of emails in their inbox.

That was a good guess except for being totally incorrect. Inbox starts with whatever is already in your Gmail.

I assume they wanted a fresh start.

"Inbox functions very much more like a ToDo list than it does an email client."

That's exciting to hear, since I've recently started turning Mailbox into a combination email client/to-do list/evernote replacement. I've found that having all those concerns in different apps meant that I never wound up using any of them often enough.

The shared concern seems to be the triaging of things that hit an "inbox" of sorts. Email hits the literal inbox, to do's hit my "stuff I need to do" buffer, and notes hit my "categorize these notes later" buffer (I compulsively note things down for later). Ultimately triaging things as their hit the Mailbox inbox is most effective for me, so I've turned it into my single source of triaging.

I'll definitely give this a shot if/when I ever get an invite ...

What are the hurdles to allowing Inbox for Google Apps users?

They can't be big, as I know Google employees can use it for Apps accounts already. No idea why they haven't enabled it for us mere mortals.

It is not yet possible. :(

Got the invite for my google apps account, tried to sign in and was denied - because it was a google apps account.

Only people who receive an invitation can use Inbox by Gmail, and they can only access Inbox through their personal Gmail account, not through their Google Apps accounts. People who receive an invite to their Google Apps account can forward it and use it on their personal account if they want to. https://support.google.com/a/answer/6082718

"Inbox functions very much more like a ToDo list than it does an email client."

This is very important. I've started using Evernote, and thought, "I really want to keep track of what gets done and who is doing what via email, without adding any complexity or forcing others into a system." I hope Inbox does this for me.

It won't. It's not a shared task system (Trello/GQueues/etc).

You have your work and personal email in the same account? How do you separate it? Standard Filters?

I'm sure Lewisham has two different accounts. Google employees have had access to Inbox for both work and personal use for a while now.

Yes, this. I have my @google.com address, and my @gmail.com address.

One feature that's unclear to me, if you don't mind: when you sweep a bundle, does it sweep only the items displayed on the screen, or everything in that category? For example, if I have 500 emails in my Forums bundle and sweep what I can see, will it sweep just those 25 or all 500? I don't want to make a mistake by testing this myself. :)

I think it will "sweep" all unpinned emails, but even after the emails have been marked as Done, you can still easily access them by clicking on the bundle (e.g. "Travel").

I've been using Mailbox for a while on mobile and more recently on desktop and I'm wondering how it compares to that app? Also, are the new Inbox features in the app available on the web as well? I ask because desktop management of email is a great feature that Mailbox's beta desktop app provides.

Are changes that you make in Inbox reflected in Gmail? For instance, if you archive (sweep?) something in Inbox is it also archived in Gmail? Are clusters related to tags?

Yes. Things marked as done in Inbox (including marking many things as Done by sweeping) are shown as archived in Gmail (and vice versa).

I am excited. I really want to an invite. Please invite me at karabacakcengiz at gmail. dot com

Agreed, this is really exciting. Please give @cengizkrbck an invite!

Will anybody, please get me an invite for google Inbox, please? [email protected]

What OS does this run on? From the screens I would say both Android and iOS, can you confirm that?

There's an app for iOS, Android, and a web app for desktop (and I think mobile web, though I've never used it).

inbox.google.com mentions iOS

"only works in Chrome". Sorry, not interested.

Does it have ads?

Not currently, to my knowledge.

I would also appreciate an invite! Thanks ([email protected])

me too :)

my username is my gmail