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Finding the perfect email app is hard, especially when the one you love dies

Screen Shot 2015 12 08 at 3.57.25 PM
RIP, Mailbox. Mailbox

I've been using the same email app for nearly three years on the iPhone. It's called Mailbox, and it's changed the way I do email.

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To my dismay, Dropbox (which has owned Mailbox since early 2013) announced on Monday that it was ceasing development of the app and its photo management app CarouselI now have until February 26, 2016 to find a new email app.

"So what?" you may ask. "Just use Apple's stock Mail app." Trust me, I've tried throughout the years to go back to Mail. But Mailbox has always been leagues ahead of what Apple Mail offers. Now that Mailbox's days are numbered, I've realized just how essential a good email app is to my daily workflow and why Mailbox kept me hooked for so long.

Apple's Mail app is likely fine for most people, but I quickly fell in love with Mailbox's intelligent snoozing abilities and intuitive design. I was part of the 250,000+ people who signed up to use the app before it was released in the App Store (over a half million ended up joining the initial wait list to get access). 

Meet Mailbox from Mailbox on Vimeo.

Using Mailbox for the first time was like experiencing email the way to should be on a touchscreen. I could quickly swipe on an email and chose to see it again later in the day, the next morning, or at another time of my choosing. The app's useful swipe gestures made navigating my overloaded inbox almost feel like fun.

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The philosophy behind Mailbox's design was the "Getting Things Done" time-management approach, so emails were treated like tasks to be completed as quickly as possible. Mailbox even rewarded you with getting to "inbox zero" by displaying a pretty picture and a congratulatory message. I always felt accomplished when my inbox was easy, and the approach kept me from having thousands of unread message notifications like some of my colleagues.

While Mailbox really excelled on the iPhone and iPad, last year's beta version on the Mac was another breath of fresh air. I was using Apple's bloated, buggy Mail app at the time on my Mac (I couldn't find anything better to replace it) and Mailbox on my iPhone. The moment Mailbox was available on the desktop, I downloaded it and never looked back.

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Mailbox

The Mac version of Mailbox has been incredibly buggy over the last several months, but I still use it every day just like I do on my iPhone. I've become so ingrained in how I read email with Mailbox that I've been willing to overlook glaring problems, like the Mac app's inability to load images in emails for months and completely broken search.

Why so much toleration? Because it was Mailbox's workflow that I was addicted to — intelligent snoozing for managing emails that weren't time sensitive and separating emails into different lists. Mailbox was excellent at doing what an email app should do well: managing my inbox. Everything else that was subpar was forgivable.

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So now I have to find something to replace Mailbox. Microsoft's Outlook looks like a good replacement on the iPhone, but it has an entirely different design and requires an Office 365 subscription on the Mac. On the plus side, Outlook will let me schedule messages just like I do with Mailbox. Google Inbox also looks like a good app for using Gmail, but it's kind of a pain to switch between my work and personal email from the web app.

The most promising new email app I've come across is Spark, which is only on the iPhone for now but will be available on the iPad and Mac within the next few months.

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A prototype design of the upcoming Spark for Mac, which could be my next email app. Readdle

Spark has a lot of power user features that look compelling, like the ability to see when someone reads email you send them and integration with services like Dropbox. The app is also getting Mailbox-like snoozing features soon, which could mean that my workflow with handling email won't have to change that much.

Mailbox's death has shown me that finding the perfect email app is tricky. I was won over by Mailbox because of how it made managing my email so much easier, and the new app that takes its place on my homescreen will have to do the same thing.

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Inbox zero. Mailbox

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