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Google is discontinuing Inbox

• ssijak 8y ago
  Ok, this was the last thing that will push me off of Google services. I was already reluctant to use their new apps and services and was pondering moving anyway. Anyhow only thing that does not have proper replacement is Photos but I will manage.
• nathancahill 8y ago
  Everyone suspected it for a while. Their active Twitter account refused for months to say when the app would be updated for the iPhone X. Personally, I suspect that they painted themselves into a bit of a corner with the tech stack they choose for Inbox. They used a unique C++ to JS compiler to run Inbox in the browser. This worked decently well in Chrome, but the experience in other browsers has been a lot choppier. It's possible the same codebase was also compiled to iOS and this is what caused the very long delay in updating for the iPhone X. I'm sad to see it go. The UX in the official Gmail app isn't quite as good. The bundle workflow they developed for working through your inbox is something I haven't seen elsewhere.
  • fra 8y ago
    When you have a successful product people love, you don't sunset it because the tech stack is too cumbersome. This has to mean that the product wasn't seeing the adoption they were hoping for.
    • nathancahill 8y ago
      You might if you find yourself developing duplicate features in parallel in two different codebases.
    • oihoaihsfoiahsf 8y ago
      I'm sure it's a little bit of both, right? If 99% of Gmail users had voluntarily migrated to Inbox, I'm quite certain it would not be getting shut down. That doesn't preclude that there is a significant contingent out there that loves Inbox. (BTW the same goes for the old HN hobby-horse, Reader. If it had had a billion users, it would never have gotten shut down.)
    • munificent 8y ago
      Love don't pay the bills. If the product isn't helping the bottom line, companies will sunset it. "Free beer" would be the most widely adopted offering a bar could have, but it's not going to be good business for the bar.
      • haggy 8y ago
        > love don't pay the bills Thats not always true especially with Google. Anything that helps tighten the already tight grip they have on users directly affects the bottom line.
      • nickwalton00 8y ago
        That's sad. I would pay to use inbox.
    • pound 8y ago
      Well, you're talking about product strategy in context of google..
  • pennaMan 8y ago
    >They used a unique C++ to JS compiler to run Inbox in the browser I would love to read some reasoning behind that. I'm really trying to come up with pro arguments but can't.
  • cromwellian 8y ago
    There was no C++ to JS compiler used, it was Java compiled to Closure Compiler (J2CL) and Java compiles to Objective-C (j2objc) However only business logic is transpiled, the UI layer on every platform is written by hand in the native impedance matched language of the platform.
    • nathancahill 8y ago
      Ah, that's right, thanks for correcting me.
  • ex3ndr 8y ago
    J2CL is much much faster than average react js code. Even testing converted port of bouncy castle's RSA and AES was faster than google's crypto.js
• kenhwang 8y ago
  Google's ADHD with products strikes again. It's really hard to get excited over new Google offerings because they just go away when Google gets bored of them, time and time again.
  • riku_iki 8y ago
    It's likely not google get bored, but users didn't adapt product on large enough scale.
    • Rebelgecko 8y ago
      I wonder what scale would have been enough. According to the play store it has over 10 million installs
      • Big_crimpin 8y ago
        Could that just mean 1 million people installed it 10 times?
        • Rebelgecko 8y ago
          Maybe but I still think there's more than that. There's 400,000 reviews, so even if they're counting people that install it multiple times it's probably not a 10:1 ratio. Also I think "10 million+" on the play store means 10,000,000 - 50,000,000, and that doesn't count iOS and web users.
          • riku_iki 8y ago
            Another important question is what is a retention rate.
        • sixstringtheory 8y ago
          Possibly, but even then... 1 million users is a lot. I don’t think I’d ever sleep if one of my apps had 1M MAUs.
      • 8y ago
• ulfw 8y ago
  Not trying to be facetious or anything, but honestly I wonder why at this point anybody would bother using any Google product besides the triumvirate of Search/Maps/Gmail. What's the point?
  • aphextron 8y ago
    Calendar is the only thing I've found that integrates really well with absolutely everything
    • ASalazarMX 8y ago
      Sheets is neat too.
  • DannyBee 8y ago
    Uh, most useful features of Inbox have made it into GMail at this point. (I was an exclusively-inbox user for quite a while) I'm happy just using gmail now that the features are there. I tried some of the extra bundling features and just didn't find them that useful. It was kind of nice but not so nice that i really miss it.
    • dragonwriter 8y ago
      > Uh, most useful features of Inbox have made it into GMail at this point. Inbox’s basic organization hasn't, and that's it's key useful feature and the one most of the rest build on.
  • szbelieves 8y ago
    Drive...
    • sauwan 8y ago
      Oh, you mean Google One?
      • 8y ago
• josephh 8y ago
  Finally, they are following through with their own app store policy of banning apps with “repetitive content”[1]. 1. https://play.google.com/about/developer-content-policy-print/ https://play.google.com/about/developer-content-policy-print...
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• quxbar 8y ago
  Okay, what can I download for iPhone to replace this? It was truly a beautiful UX. I loved it every single day I used it.
  • jedmeyers 8y ago
    Gmail? Most of the feature are there already.
• wnevets 8y ago
  If you had to do with tons of email Inbox seem like it would be great. However it just got in the way when you only had to deal a few emails a day.
  • IggleSniggle 8y ago
    I went from 10000+ unread emails to inbox-zero. I honestly don’t think I could have taken the leap without Inbox. True, I don’t need the bundling feature as much any more, but I’m sad the product is going away.
    • sdoering 8y ago
      Exactly that. I really digged the different philosophy Inbox brought to the table. You had "Inbox Zero" by creating a Task List out of your inbox. It was practically a todo list made up of emails. With scheduling, reminders, pinning and stuff. And automatically sorting into bundles like social, purchases or trips. Man I will miss the automatic bundling of all my trip related mails.
    • sonofaplum 8y ago
      YES. it doesn't matter if you CAN possibly recreate some of the functionality in gmail. it matters if the app guides you to your preferred workflow. Inbox made it easier to keep inbox zero than not. Thats the difference.
• dfischer 8y ago
  That makes me sad. I love the snooze features of inbox. The new gmail one is not the same. :(. Especially the UX of the iPhone app. Oh well.
  • antimora 8y ago
    You have it in Gmail now too.
    • dfischer 8y ago
      It’s not the same on the UX I’m missing. In the inbox app it’s a quick swipe to snooze. In Gmail it archives. :(
• DannyBee 8y ago
  It's really interesting to see the super-knee jerk reaction here when the article itself even says that most of the features made their way into gmail. (I was a heavy inbox user, and i am happy with the stuff that made it's way into gmail). Outside of some of the bundling features, i'm curious what actual difference people are complaining about here.
  • cle 8y ago
    People are complaining about having to switch apps. Users have found something that works and they've gotten used to it. Now they'll be forced to switch for no apparent value add. Why do you think people would be okay with that?
    • DannyBee 8y ago
      That isn't the part i'm commenting on. It's a general statement on the world that people hate all change :) People have always argued literally every change has no value add for them (and i'm sure for large enough things, there are always people for which that is true). So that part doesn't bug me. But that's not what most of the comments seem to be. Because honestly, if the only complaint people have is "i had to open a different app", that's actually really good for any transition.
      • amelius 8y ago
        Change ... - causes uncertainty (will this still work?); - often comes at an inconvenient time; - requires the user to re-learn the software; - might cause incompatibilities with existing tools. No wonder people mostly don't like updates, especially if they are forced upon them, and if the advantages are not clear. Imho, to address the above points, software should let the user decide when they perform the update, and the user should always be allowed to switch back. Note that this might require data to be migrated back and forth, but of course that's the vendor's problem.
      • pvg 8y ago
        Come on. It's one of the essential, fundamental apps/services for many people with all the strong feelings attached to that. For a Googler to show up and start publicly calling users' reactions 'kneejerk' (completely independent of the accuracy of the claim) and then go on to philosophizing broadly on the nature of change amounts to trolling.
• explodingcamera 8y ago
  I'm actually thinking of switching to a different email service because of this. Gmail is just way to cluttered for my taste, inbox's model where you can just check off emails and they're gone was such a time-saver and a fresh breath of air. I hope I can find something as simplistic and at the same time feature rich somewhere else :(
  • vidarh 8y ago
    I've wanted to for a long time;Inbox put that on hold because it made my email manageable again. Clearly it's time to start looking for alternatives again.
    • politelemon 8y ago
      What alternatives are there, similar to Inbox?
      • vidarh 8y ago
        I wish I knew of any, but after having tried Gmail again after this announcement, I really don't want to go back. If I can't find any I might be forced to write my own.
• elboru 8y ago
  Inbox was the first tool that helped me reach "inbox zero". I really liked the feel of seeing the cute landscape after I was done with my email. Anyways I saw this coming since they took a lot of time to update their app for the iPhone X.
• spookyuser 8y ago
  They can pry it from my cold dead hands
• DanFeldman 8y ago
  Damnit, I love inbox and I use it everyday. Much preferred to the GMAIL ui, seemed less cluttered to me and the swiping features to archive/snooze/pin were great. Yikes. It worked really well out of the box for bundling and didn't need much configuration. RIP inbox.
• mcfunk 8y ago
  I tried to move to Inbox but kept having to use the Gmail app after I would see alerts for mail and then was unable to find the message in question in Inbox without searching, which is tedious. The "missed messages" problem was one I couldn't ever get past (maybe my own settings were to blame -- but at the end of the day it wasn't worth the time to figure out).
• ohitsdom 8y ago
  I still use Inbox and I love it. I snooze reminders all the time for bills and regular maintenance tasks. If I snoozed something for a few years from now, does anyone know if it'll work in gmail?
• domoritz 8y ago
  Noooooo. I love bundling and the Gmail UI is just so cluttered with stuff. EDIT: Okay, they are porting bundling to Gmail. I hope they also clean up the UI. The settings dialog is a nightmare to look at.
• fernandopj 8y ago
  I'm a happy and heavy user of Inbox, this came as a shock to me. I guess I'll wait and see by January how is Gmail, but I'm not looking forward. > By retiring Inbox, is Google losing a valuable ability to experiment with new email functionality in a way that’s tough to do with a billion-user mainstay? I also agree with this. If Google decided to let Inbox go, same way as with Wave, then the next "email UX experiment" will be another codename. Why not use the existing Inbox product to do the next innovation? Its base is formed by users which already showed adoption to new ideas and UI.
  • dragonwriter 8y ago
    > Why not use the existing Inbox product to do the next innovation? Because the next innovation may be a completely different direction. I much prefer Inbox to Gmail, but I'd be a lot less happy for the Inbox name to be kept but the actual app to replaced by some completely new vision. > Its base is formed by users which already showed adoption to new ideas and UI. I bought into Inbox’s specific vision, not the generic idea of novelty. If Inbox didn't work out for Google, I'm disappointed, but I'd rather they kill it openly than that I get force fed some new unrelated novelty approach because I was using Inbox and must therefore be into whatever.
  • mawburn 8y ago
    I really hated Inbox. I thought it was one of the worst ideas they had come up with in years. But, after seeing the amount of support that it has in this thread, I'm sad it's going just for the thing you mentioned. They could have kept this as an experimental ground to give the rest of the users good features that weren't so disruptive to what we are used to.
• agentPrefect 8y ago
  To be honest; I'm a little surprised it's lasted this long.
• al_form2000 8y ago
  Gee, tough on its four users.
• StephenAshmore 8y ago
  Well, I suppose I'll be looking for a replacement to Gmail pretty quick. Long time inbox user from the beginning, and Gmail still isn't caught up to it in UI/UX, plus loads of my "Done" emails in inbox still show up in Gmail.
• hmans 8y ago
  How do I enable bundles in Gmail?
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• tosh 8y ago
  I think by now it would be worth for Google to re-think their branding strategy. How about releasing new experimental products off-brand? Google by now has a reputation of discontinuing products (some very vocal) users love. This makes it very difficult for new Google-branded products to gain traction. Especially if the onboarding is costly & discontinuation would hurt a lot (e.g. Google Cloud, Dart, productivity apps, …).
  • tosh 8y ago
    Another approach could be to build a brand around their 'enterprise' offerings with SLAs & LTS and make it more explicit which products are covered and which aren't.
    • cobookman 8y ago
      https://cloud.google.com/terms/deprecation https://cloud.google.com/terms/deprecation Formal list of products covered under deprecation policy
      • tosh 8y ago
        Something like this for all products (beyond cloud) & as part of the overall branding strategy would be super useful to protect the brand.
  • kartickv 8y ago
    Good point. Another way is to release new products as "Experimental". When you try to use one for the first time, you'll get a big red warning saying this product may be discontinued any time. Any product that Google is committed to wouldn't have this experimental label. That way, Google can keep trying things out, early adopters who want them can use them, and the rest of us can keep away. Everyone's happy. Google will stop hurting themselves by developing a reputation that none of their products can be depended on to stick around. Both your strategy and mine require Google to first be clear about what they want to commit to. Currently, they're not — they just throw things at the wall to see what sticks, but that's hurting their reputation, so they need to do better.
• thieving_magpie 8y ago
  You've got to be kidding me. This was the last thing I used heavily. I'm out the door now. Good grief does this company frustrate me.
• giggsey 8y ago
  Does Gmail have any features like Inbox's groupings for Trips? I have a lot of emails grouped together into a Trip, which Inbox helpfully shows a card summary for (including flights and reservations).
  • redbonsai 8y ago
    Trips is by far my most used feature -- I'm really going to miss that too!
• kevindong 8y ago
  I still deeply miss Mailbox (the cross platform app bought and abandoned by Dropbox). It was SO fast and sleek. Emails appeared damn near instantly, the app never lagged, and actions taken locally were reflected remotely near instantaneously. Email clients are a lot better now than then. In fact the best features of Mailbox (swipe to /action/ and snoozing) has been copied by basically every email client now. However, I have yet to find an email app for either macOS or iOS that's as consistently fast.
• andybak 8y ago
  > Outside of some of the bundling features Bundling (in the inbox) is THE reason for using Inbox. It's the only unique feature. It's the thing that changed how I use email. If I use folders it's the kiss of death for any email that a rule sends to that folder. I want a single list but with some items collapsed. Email went from unthreaded to threaded (reducing the complexity massively. Bundles takes that one step further. In both cases the critical thing is one ordered list but with a massively reduced number of individual items.
  • ramy_d 8y ago
    and pinning!
    • deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    • noja 8y ago
      Pinning was basically starring with a ui toggle, right?
      • Ajedi32 8y ago
        No, it also allows you instantly archive everything in your Inbox without touching the important, pinned stuff.
        • noja 8y ago
          I'm using it to pin important stuff, and switch between the important and standard views.
          • ramy_d 8y ago
            it's so useful
  • deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
• Apreche 8y ago
  WTF I use inbox for everything. GMail is basically unusable for me at this point. This is a complete disaster.
  • deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
• wlesieutre 8y ago
  Side-note on Google's communication systems, I watch an email thread at work where it went: 1) Here are my questions 2) I've added responses below in BLUE 3) Additional feedback in GREEN 4) More responses in BROWN and it really made me miss Google Wave. Inline replies within long emails are not well handled.
  • pythonaut_16 8y ago
    Is that similar to the functionality provided by Twist from Doist? It's not email based but it seems to be a hybrid of Email and Slack. I've only messed with it a few times and never with Google Wave, but it sounds similar to what you're describing.
    • wlesieutre 8y ago
      I'm not familiar with Twist but from a quick glance I don't see a similar function. Wave let you post a reply in the middle of someone else's message, so that if you were presented with a whole list of questions you could answer each of them inline, and other people could tag on to those new conversation threads in place.
• p90puma 8y ago
  Feels like Google Reader 2.0 for me .... Fool me twice...
• ohadron 8y ago
  This is so bad for my productivity. I will be missing: - Reminders (with the ability to snooze them) - Inbox bundling for promo, social, trips etc. - Pinning and archiving everything that is not pinned - Android 'Add reminder' widget Any ideas on how to replace these are welcome
  • advisedwang 8y ago
    some ideas - regular gmail now has snooze too - reminders can be set in google cal (at least on mobile) and in assistant and from search box
    • komali2 8y ago
      Unfortunately Google assistant doesn't use Google keep for shopping list, so it's unusable for me. I have to use the uh... "Google now"... thing... Fuck me if I can keep track of Google product names.
  • sauwan 8y ago
    I agree. I'll gladly pay for a new email service that has these features. Been looking for a good reason to get off google's email (for security reasons), and this looks like a great kick in the butt to do so.
  • jetrink 8y ago
    A few months ago, I realized how important reminders had become to me. Knowing that Inbox might disappear someday, I switched to Todoist and began adding all new reminders (tasks) there. Apart from the lack of integration with Inbox (which is now a moot point), it is a straight upgrade. * You can still sync reminders to your Google Calendar (tasks appear as events on the date they are due). Edits made in the calendar will be synced back to Todoist. * Tasks can be assigned sub-tasks * Tasks can be organized into projects * You can create complex filters Of course, if you want to keep things simple, that's an option too and for the most part, I've avoided the fancy features.
    • komali2 8y ago
• maybeiambatman 8y ago
  WTF. I have been using and loving (for the most part) Inbox since they launched it. I had to work so hard to bring down my Inbox to zero. sigh I guess with Google, I should have expected as much.
• etimberg 8y ago
  That's unfortunate. I really liked Inbox (other than the horrible performance)
• antirez 8y ago
  I don't understand Google here. Clearly Gmail is not the final word about email user interface, and Inbox was a very promising first step. I can understand, if Inbox did not receive enough attention, to start moving Inbox to different directions, but how is it possible that Google has no space for a permanent alternative UI testing project?
• gesman 8y ago
  I like the search capability of inbox - it always was better than gmail. It had it quirks due to "designed to focus on what really matters." - actually meaning: "we'll ignore what you want and need and do it the way we think you need".
• kaushalmodi 8y ago
  These are really unfortunate news! :( My stress level just went up after opening gmail.com after few years since I switched to Inbox. Being used to just swiping emails that I didn't need to attend, I didn't realize they were still in "unread" status. Now when I opened Gmail, I see: Social 190 Updates 4,856 Forums 3,329 Promotions 4,214 The worst part is that I cannot see which of those "Unread" emails are pinned in Inbox. And.. we cannot Pin emails in Gmail the same way as in Inbox :( [I have already read the "Pin emails" section in https://support.google.com/inbox/answer/9117840 https://support.google.com/inbox/answer/9117840, but starring/labeling/searching doesn't give the convenience that Inbox pinning did.] I'll also miss all the rich email rendering of emails like shipping tracking, flight tickets, appointments, etc. Alas.. --- Update: And of course Google would discontinue Inbox. Inbox did not have ads, but Gmail has freaking ads!
  • samirm 8y ago
    what's wrong with leaving emails unread?
    • jfaat 8y ago
      For me, it’s because I can’t stand having meaningless ‘5,423’ badges littering the icons on my home screen.
      • majewsky 8y ago
        We've been conditioned to have that reaction. (That's also why they're red.) Unread-badges are designed to make you open the app, thus increasing the amount of time spent in the app. Freudian slip: I accidentally wrote "the time spent in the ad" on the first try. :)
        • kkarakk 8y ago
          yeah but every service you sign up for now has newsletters/mailing lists and constantly sends you semi relevant spam with the occasional gem that you can't instantly consign to the rubbish bin. inbox was so simple for dealing with things like that
• smsm42 8y ago
  That's the problem with Google latest-and-greatest offerings - they roll it out, make a hype, if you're naive enough you start using it, integrate it in your workflow - and they they decide it's not what they wanted and throw it out, and you have to re-do your workflow again. I just switched to using desktop mail client and going to web UI only occasionally - at least desktop client is not likely to go away when Google gets bored with it.
• hackathonguy 8y ago
  Pinning, bundling, gestures and embedded todos/reminders all make Inbox the best email app there is. Hats off to the Inbox team - you've made a great product. I'll miss it.
• matteska 8y ago
  When Google shutdown their RSS Reader, Feedly lived... What’s the Inbox successor going to be?
• sdoering 8y ago
  Well thanks Google. You just made the necessary transition into MS Outlook land so much more easy. My company got bought and I need to switch into MS land. Sadly. But my biggest complain was to loose my workflow from Inbox. Google killing this just kills one argument from my list. Sadly. I like the UI. I really, really like the reminders and the bundles. And the ability to postpone a message to see it as new some later time was a big boon too. I know - lot's of that is already in Gmail. But the UI is just so... not there. Well. Again - Google killing a great product that only a minority of people are using. It is not that nerds matter.
  • awiesenhofer 8y ago
    Same here without the aquisition. Will be interesting to see how much Inbox functionality can be replicated by custom rules etc.
• klandergren 8y ago
  Inbox changed my relationship with email and it is unbelievably frustrating to hear it is being shuttered. I was a better digital person because of the app: I never forgot to reply, I kept years of ideas and small notes in reminders, and I could quickly triage and clear all incoming mail. These things in particular made Inbox stand out: * UI - simple, uncluttered mobile and desktop experience with uncomplicated keyboard shortcuts. It even had the little things like a satisfying sun animation when your inbox was empty! Desktop Gmail has a surfeit of widgets and add-on icons that perplex, distract, and confuse. * Bundles - especially for trips: all the relevant emails I needed, in one place—unbelievably useful while traveling. All tickets and information aggregated automatically (and if not, easily added manually). * Reminders / Compose access - fast interface for creating small notes and mailing frequently contacted people. No reminders equivalent in Gmail (Tasks are available on Desktop but not mobile) and the mobile compose on Gmail is a blank email. * Pinning - sticky a reminder or email for easy access and reference later. I guess gmail's equivalent is marking as important or moving to inbox? In any event, if any of the Inbox team are reading this: big THANK YOU for creating a revolutionary product that was a joy to use. I already submitted feedback through the app wishing it would continue but if there is anything further I can do please share how!
  • noja 8y ago
    Trips was the killer feature. I hope they port it. The ability to collect all my related information (a particular trip for example) into a single view was genius.
    • __sr__ 8y ago
      Try Google Trips
      • noja 8y ago
        Okay, what's the URL?
        • __sr__ 8y ago
• mcilai 8y ago
  No!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• __sr__ 8y ago
  Wow! I haven’t used regular Gmail in years! It will be a pain to switch back. The whole bundling, scheduling, snoozing, pinning, reminders etc are really useful. But then it’s Google. The key people probably got bored and moved on and perhaps no one else is willing to take it up. At least they didn’t make 10 different email products like they did with IM. Any suggestions for alternative email clients for iOS/Android (other than Gmail app) which works well with Gmail? The iOS client doesn’t work well with Gmail. I’m looking for something which has as many as possible features from Inbox and doesn’t mess up my inbox — i.e. no Mail Pilot.
  • jamesjyu 8y ago
    I recently switched back to Gmail from Inbox (before this announcement) and was pleasantly surprised that most of the features from Inbox were there. I barely had to change my workflow.
    • __sr__ 8y ago
      I like the way Inbox handles certain kind emails differently —- e.g. it extracts relevant data from newsletters, tickets, receipts, order confirmations, package tracking emails etc. so they are available at a quick glance. A quick glance tells me that is not the case with Gmail — correct me if I am mistaken.
      • jamesjyu 8y ago
        Ah yes, I don't think those features made it, but I never found that to be the killer feature anyway. Perhaps someone can remake those, now that Gmail has a proper marketplace for add-ons.
        • fluidcruft 8y ago
          Do the addons work in the mobile apps or is it just browser things?
        • kkarakk 8y ago
• noja 8y ago
  Good news everyone: Google will be integrating their Trips feature into Trio (the successor to Duo after it sunsets next month).
• yingw787 8y ago
  I really like Inbox reminders and the smart addressee option when pressing the "Compose" button. I use reminders when I'm offline to save notes to myself. If I use my Google Home, then the reminders also show up in Inbox. I really liked how reminders and this part of the Google ecosystem integrated with my lifestyle routines. I guess I could switch to Todoist or roll my own thing, but it won't be the same. Needless to say I'm miffed by this news. It tells me it's dangerous to love Google products no matter how great they are, because one day they'll be taken away.
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• tvanantwerp 8y ago
  Google breaks my heart yet again. Farewell, Inbox! I guess next they'll discontinue my phone service, too.
• Zyst 8y ago
  Been using Inbox for the last 4 years, sad to see it go. The bundle structure, and snoozing are both features I use religiously. Thanks to the Inbox team for delivering a great product!
• Myrmornis 8y ago
  OK, how do I get Inbox's "sweep" action in Gmail? What "sweep" did is just in one click get rid of _everything_ that you haven't pinned. It was a massive productivity boost for someone for whom dealing with email was mostly a waste of time (my company doesn't really use email much, so my inbox mostly contained notifications from other apps).
• cl3m 8y ago
  Is there any good todo manager with reminders and saved link with a snooze function like Inbox? or is there any way to see those in Gmail?
• matwood 8y ago
  I saw this coming when it took Google months to update the Inbox app for the iPhoneX. The regular gmail app was updated almost instantly. I started weaning myself off of Inbox then, even though it finally was updated.
• Myrmornis 8y ago
  Very disappointing. I feel like this is retrograde -- my impression is that Gmail is a very advanced tool for people who care (by choice or professional obligation) about their email, whereas Inbox was a huge leap forwards for people who just want to avoid wasting time on email. And I kind of thought the latter was more forward-looking.
• tdfx 8y ago
  I don't mean to throw out the same old "you can't get attached to Google products because they kill them at any time" thing, but holy shit, this one feels like a real kick in the balls. Email is one of my most important workflows and I've spent a great deal of time over the past few years attaching myself to the zero inbox mindset through the bundles feature and having my reminders as first class citizens in the inbox. Going back to Gmail without these features is a serious regression in my life.
  • emodendroket 8y ago
    I'm not too familiar with it; how is this different from setting a "skip the inbox" filter?
    • Ajedi32 8y ago
      Bundles don't skip the inbox; that's the point. Stuff in your inbox is stuff you haven't had a chance to deal with yet; prematurely moving emails out of your inbox that you haven't had a chance to look at would break that workflow.
      • schintan 8y ago
        not a inbox user, but cannot something similar be done with gmail tabs ?
        • Ajedi32 8y ago
          Maybe. Can you add custom search queries as tabs? Something like "in:label AND in:inbox" would probably be a reasonable substitute (though perhaps a bit more clunky).
          • deleted 8y ago
            [deleted]
          • adangert 8y ago
            Yeah I believe that is possible, most of the stuff you can do in inbox, you can do in Gmail with more control.
• ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  There's been some revisionist history out there, but Inbox was intended to be "the next version of Gmail" at the time, until a near revolt internally about how the Gmail team "ruined Gmail" led them to launch it as a "separate product" instead. Now that there's a new new version of Gmail, which was rolled out a couple of months ago that hasn't upset everyone, it's unsurprising the unloved stepchild of the family is going away. Old Gmail was version 1, Inbox was version 2, and the new Gmail is version 3.
• komali2 8y ago
  If someone makes a clone that I can plug my @gmail.com account into, or just forward from, I will be a paying customer.
• dev_parrott 8y ago
  This is devastating news. I'm going to completely change my workflow around email. Does anybody know of a comparable product?
• emodendroket 8y ago
  Thunderbird is still around and I'm sticking with it as long as it works.
• aequitas 8y ago
  Inbox had two distinct content types, emails and reminders. Both where handled the same by Inbox but reminders don't show up in Gmail. Anyone found yet how to migrate these to Gmail? I have a lot of reminders that are snoozed at specific times and also to "Some day". Would really hate to loose them. I checked to data exporter Google provides and it has no entry for Inbox, only Gmail.
  • awestroke 8y ago
    They are in your Google Calendar I think
• svrtknst 8y ago
  Aw fuck.
• jordanthoms 8y ago
  Ugh! I love Inbox, going back to the Gmail interface feels awful in comparison. I love the grouping of emails by day so I can easily see everything that came in today. Having a separate app that takes a different approach which heavy users of email might like makes sense - the UI you need when you are getting 100+ emails a day is very different from when you are getting 5.
• adrwhong 8y ago
  Hmm this really sucks, especially for my daily/hourly reminders that I have set up. What are others using to replace Inbox's reminders?
• 4rgento 8y ago
  This may be a case of following the data with disregard to the dynamics. 1. In the beginning there was G Mail and there where two camps(roughly): a. Those who made heavy use of e-mail, and where "adapted" to the user interface. b. Those who had problems with the UI(replying to all their emails, etc...) Of those two camps: those in camp `a` where unlikely to switch. That would have interfered with their workflow. Those in camp `b`, not all switched because people resist change. Change takes energy. 2. Then there was `Inbox` Now, there is a subset of camp `b` which has adapted its workflow to use Inbox. The most satisfied ones are here complaining :). They don't want to go back to G mail, but will be forced to. The questions I would ask, if I were responsible for shutting down Inbox, are: * How many people were leaving inbox for G mail? * Why?
  • 4rgento 8y ago
    Also gmail is the default android app but I'd guess they have consider that.
• Ajedi32 8y ago
  This is really unfortunate. Inbox's primary differentiator was never in any one individual feature like Snooze or Smart Reply. No, the real value of Inbox was that its design was built around a fundamentally different philosophy on what email is and how it should be managed. Gmail takes a traditional approach to email management. Messages come in, you read them, maybe organize them with labels, then archive them, delete them, or just leave them in your inbox forever. It doesn't really make any assumptions about your workflow, it just gives you a bunch of fairly standard email client features and leaves it up to you how you use them. Inbox on the other hand is very opinionated. It was designed around the idea that your inbox is a to-do list, and everything from the UI to features like pinning, snooze, and reminders is built around that assumption. Emails come in and get sorted into categories, then you go through that list triage them, marking emails that require no action as done, pinning the ones you want to deal with soon, and snoozing the ones you want to come back to later. You can even attach reminders to emails so you don't forget what task they represent. When you're done you hit the sweep button and everything that isn't pinned or snoozed gets wiped clean. As a result of this workflow, emails you've already dealt with are hidden away in the "done" folder, leaving only emails in your inbox which represent reminders or tasks you have yet to complete. You can even add custom reminders to Inbox which aren't tied to any specific email. Basically it turns your inbox into a to-do list. I'm saddened to see Inbox go. Gmail doesn't really capture this workflow with quite the same level of elegance Inbox does; it just wasn't designed to work that way. I suspect that long after Inbox is gone I'll still find myself using the workflow it taught me; treating my inbox like a to-do list even when the client I use is no longer built around that workflow.
  • shafyy 8y ago
    Exactly this is the key difference and what I'll miss. I really hope they add a "Inbox mode" to Gmail... Which they'll probably don't.
  • abraae 8y ago
    > Gmail takes a traditional approach to email management. Messages come in, you read them, maybe organize them with labels, then archive them, delete them, or just leave them in your inbox forever. Not that long ago, gmail was a radically new way to deal with email. 1) aggregating emails from a single conversation in your inbox - yes, on the old days, every incoming email was a line in your inbox. 2) providing archive functionality - no need to organise and file your old emails, just click archive and use the search later if you find you'll need them
• kposehn 8y ago
  This really bums me out. I’ve been using inbox all-in since the start and have loved it since day one. Switching back to gmail is going to be a real challenge as I prefer the way it organizes my email.
• kurtisc 8y ago
  I don't like Inbox. So, rather than being annoyed it's going, I'm worried that Google will morph GMail into Inbox and force me to use its non-chronological features. I've already had it shoved down my throat with the web app - thankfully I could revert it.
• afro88 8y ago
  Anyone know why they're shuttering it?
  • blondin 8y ago
    i don't know either, but let me guess... money? power users here are arguing UI and functionality... but when they redesigned GMail, i took a look. and it dawn upon me that with Inbox i was in a different world. Inbox has 0 ads. GMail is full of ads. to the point i don't even know where my messages are. they be scrapping your messages like crazy to get you to click on those ads. i don't blame Google. really. it's just sad to have to switch yet again.
• samirm 8y ago
  good riddance
• akshaynathan 8y ago
  Sad to see this here, but if anyone is interested in a new tool with some of the features of Inbox (snoozing, pinning and more to come), we're building Monolist (https://monolist.co https://monolist.co). Monolist integrates directly into the tools you use and surfaces things that you can act on inline in the app (missed Slack mentions, Asana tasks, Calendar invites etc.). We're actually working on a GMail integration right now and would love to hear from the community what kinds of Inbox features we could replicate successfully.
  • Klathmon 8y ago
    My biggest thing that I am kind of panicking that I'm going to lose is the ability to batch groups of emails into bundles and deliver them at given times of the day. For example, all "purchase" emails (emails like shipping updates, receipts, etc...) are automatically hidden whenever they come in, and are delivered under one bundle at 9am for me, and they will send notifications to my devices and show up right in front of me at that time. This is very different than something like Gmail tabs, because they are fully out of sight and out of mind until they "arrive" that morning. And that feature is the killer feature for me. Imagine if your physical mail was delivered to your door tens or hundreds of times a day? That's how I feel about normal email clients. And after getting used to this way of working, I have this vacuum that I desperately want filled with just not email, but all notifications on all platforms. Id love to queue up all Reddit messages until after my workday, bundle most Twitter notifications until one specific time every day, get a notification from slack at 4:45 and "snooze" it to show up like new tomorrow morning at 9 AM. Snoozing notifications individually isn't a replacement, the ability to choose to snooze automatically to the next key time was huge. Putting them in tabs hidden from the "main" view isn't a replacement, I won't remember to check that tab unless I'm in my email and have time to do it (and remember to). Inbox changed how I deal with interruptions, it changed what I want from a phone, it helped me stop my FOMO in a lot of areas, and kept me from forgetting to answer emails and do tasks because I would forget to check a task list or something. I know I'm only one person, and I still haven't clicked on your pink and checked it out (I plan to right after this), but I would very much pay good money for software that can enable this workflow again, especially if it works for more than just emails and reminders.
• jillesvangurp 8y ago
  I think this choice may be partially inspired by the fact that lots of people never switched to Inbox and people like myself actually switched back at some point. For me pinning UX kind of sucked and I really missed the Gmail density of information. What's sad is that Inbox stopped evolving almost immediately after they released it. This seems to be a thing at Google. Release something, hype it, and then just walk away instead of maintaining and improving it. If there was anyone working on that at all in the last 3 years; sorry I failed to notice that there was anything happening at all. It looks to me that there was a skeleton maintenance team at best. So, it looks like there was some infighting and the Inbox team got starved of resources. Gmail on the other hand was improved a lot over the past few years. In general it strikes me that essentially all attempts by Google to do a bait and switch of their products in the past few years have been impopular and somewhat underwhelming in their outcome. They've killed a lot of popular products in favor of things that then flopped. They've repeatedly walked away from products that maybe had issues but were entirely fixable only to replace them with something worse. There's something deeply wrong with how Google is being managed since Alphabet was created. They are lacking a clear direction/strategy. Is it Fuchsia, Chrome OS or Android that is going to be the OS of choice? I'm not sure they know the answer themselves. I'm not sure their OEMs know either. My advice, kill two out of three and get it done within the next 12 months. IMHO, Android would at this point be by far the most disruptive thing to kill. There's a big risk of forks surviving any attempt by Google to kill that and ending up being a headache for Google. Similarly, which of their billion chat clients are we supposed to actually use at this point? Same advice, pick one, kill the rest ASAP. IMHO keeping and fixing hangouts is the best course of action at this point. It's the only one that's been around long enough to actually have a user base (despite it's many flaws and terrible UX).
  • sixothree 8y ago
    I was actually never able to switch. I did receive my invitation email, but the link never did work. I requested another one and the link never did work. Wait 6 months rinse repeat. My accounts are broken at google or something. That would explain the notifications I get for other users....
  • kkarakk 8y ago
• kag0 8y ago
  Is anyone interested in building a new email client/service based on the inbox-as-a-todo-list paradigm? Maybe something that would work with any email provider but would sync todo/done/snoozed state with our server. Or perhaps could embed that state in IMAP flags. I'd be open to working on the backend and arch if there's interest.
• vl 8y ago
  Google's communication strategy (and any other strategy really) is just a reflection of internal incentives structure and organization structure. One would hope that this is the other way around, but it is what it is.
• tzury 8y ago
  Inbox so far is the very best email client I used. It is not an email client, rather a task manager. Mails, reminders, auto reminder, auto-grouping, oh, and TRIPS! Oh man, trips, every incoming email related to a trip is automatically merged into the bundle, airline tickets, car rentals, hotels, flight schedule changes, you simply need nothing else, it was all there. The new Gmail recently introduced is not getting close to Inbox. I can't believe they do it.
• andrewstuart 8y ago
  Maybe the term for this is "unfluencing" - where you take a product used by many influencers and drop it, making them mad and hostile and reducing trust. It's the opposite to "influencing".
• talles 8y ago
  didgoogleshutdown.com needs an update
• awiesenhofer 8y ago
  Is there any Win/macos desktop app that works somewhat similar to Inbox?
• welix92 8y ago
  Good riddance
• philip1209 8y ago
  Superhuman is a great alternative.
• pantheon 8y ago
  Hey guys, majority of people here are smart - why, why, why do you use any of Google products? Just learn to live without them and you will be much happier. Google is crap.
• rcthompson 8y ago
  I assumed this was coming eventually. It's been clear for a while that Gmail is under active development and Inbox isn't, so I figured Inbox's days had to be numbered.
• knorker 8y ago
  Come on, you knew this was coming the day they launched it, right? They were not going to maintain both gmail and Inbox, and Inbox just could not win. But it looks like gmail is getting Inbox features.
• bitcharmer 8y ago
  Typical Google
• n72 8y ago
  Ugh. I while back I switched all my gcal events which emailed me to reminders. Now I have to change them all back again.
• gammateam 8y ago
  OOPS
• ben_jones 8y ago
  Why isn't Google more clear on the life expectancy of its products? Because it would hurt adoption numbers.
• brazzledazzle 8y ago
  This is pretty frustrating.
• uses 8y ago
  I don't know why this surprises me but this just feels weird. I felt like Inbox was the product that I was supposed to get on board with. It really is true that you just can't love google products. They make it freaking impossible.
• dogweather 8y ago
  I can't keep the various gmail clients straight, so I'm not too broken up. AFAICT: * I use Inbox most of the time, until... * I need to create a filter, and I switch to gmail to do it. * Then I continue using gmail because I forget to change back to Inbox...
• andybak 8y ago
  I'm struggling to post a comment that doesn't just consist of a lot of swearv words strung together. I knew this might happen but I'm really gutted. I'm actually worried about how my time management and workflow is going to fare in light of this. It's weird how much this bothers me.
• cmurf 8y ago
  I'd like to see the new Gmail interface abandoned. It soaks my CPU doing all these b.s. animations that don't actually advance the UI or the UX. And times millions of users, what's the carbon footprint of all those extra CPU cycles?
• sjg007 8y ago
  Gmail search is terrible... it’s the one thing I don’t get why it’s so bad.
• foobarbazetc 8y ago
  Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
• reality_czech 8y ago
  Friends don't let friends depend on Google products.
  • z0r 8y ago
    Friends don't let friends depend on web apps.
• radium3d 8y ago
  Man, I just tried out gmail and the UI is so bloated and slow. C'mon google, don't bullshit us that "gmail" is equivalent. It's not about what it can do, it's how it does it.
• allard 8y ago
  Took me the better part of an hour to find snooze in the Android Gmail app. It wouldn't appear until after I visited gmail.com in a full browser. That is a royal clustermess. I'm usually not annoyed by vendors changing their stuff. Super annoying to have to give up the blue app.
• lechiffre10 8y ago
  What's the point of adopting Google products if most end up being canned? I love that they're willing to release cool new products but it's almost like a bunch of children who quickly move on to another set of toys
• jacquesm 8y ago
  Dear user of product 'X' that you've come to depend on for your daily workflow and that you are completely happy with. To serve you better we have decided to kill of 'X' and force you into 'Y' which does some of 'X' but worse and will kill your workflow for the next couple of months, and will give you a lot of extra work to do besides. Of course 'Y' does not look the same - nor does it act the same - as 'X' but we are super excited to have an opportunity to force some change on you, the user, just because we value you so much and we really would never make a change like this as a way to cut costs. Best regards, your ever caring and loving supplier.
• bogomipz 8y ago
  >"...as then senior VP Sundar Pichai explained in a blog post, Inbox was “designed to focus on what really matters.”" So does "what really" mattered then no longer matter now? Certainly email hasn't fundamentally changed since then.
• mikulabc 8y ago
  Don't worry people, remember Google latitude? It was gone and came back :)
• joboyx 8y ago
  Please don't shutdown Inbox!
• Aeolun 8y ago
  FFS! I finally managed to get into using Inbox, and Google is being google again and killing the project. I guess there’s something to the adage that you shouldn’t use anything google if you want it to last.
• cannonedhamster 8y ago
  Google's penchant for killing products is why I moved away from them for even their stable products. I want a company to be okay with having a stable platform of boring work to build exciting things on top of and Google isn't that company. Add to that my lack of trust in Google to not spy even when it says it won't, and it was just a perfect series of events. I honestly think the phone jack removal might have been the defining moment when I decided to move to an iPhone 6S. They will pry that phone jack from my cold dead hands.
• jryan49 8y ago
  Hmm, maybe we should create an open source version of inbox?
• albertfrostt 8y ago
  Brutal. Hope someone builds an Inbox replacement before next March. Gmail feels archaic after Inbox.
• albertfrostt 8y ago
  I suggest you voice your opinion here: https://productforums.google.com/forum/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer#!msg/inbox/k-NVIvqwXt0/9T2NTCf9BgAJ https://productforums.google.com/forum/?utm_medium=email&utm...
• 0xb100db1ade 8y ago
  I'm switching to protonmail because of this. It has a nice UI and as a bonus I'll get encryption.
• motiw 8y ago
  To all inbox user I will appreciate your opinion on Centask which attempts to take inbox philosophy one step forward and completely merge Gmail inbox and task management
• mezzode 8y ago
  Inbox has got to be the single most useful productivity tool for me. Pinning, bundling, and snoozing just make managing emails so quick and efficient since you can easily triage and get rid of what doesn't matter, and Gmail as it currently stands just can't compete. If bundling and pinning aren't brought over to Gmail like snooze, Gmail is basically dead to me from an efficiency perspective since manually selecting what you want to remove takes significantly longer than pinning and sweeping in Inbox. Worse still, there's the opposite problem if we wanted to build an Inbox successor on top of Gmail since while bundling and pinning would be easily implemented by the client, snooze is still not part of the Gmail API[1] so there would need to be a completely separate layer of snoozing in the client. Honestly, if a competitor were to rise and implement Inbox's feature set, my money is on the table. [1] https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/109952618 https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/109952618
• AzzieElbab 8y ago
  Clearly evil
• vagab0nd 8y ago
  I'm a little confused by the replies here. From the source article from Google [0], it sounds like they are planning on merging Inbox features back into Gmail and focusing on one product instead of two. They even put out a transition guide. I think long term this is a good thing. Why are people freaking out? 0: https://www.blog.google/products/gmail/inbox-signing-find-your-favorite-features-new-gmail/ https://www.blog.google/products/gmail/inbox-signing-find-yo...
• cdaringe 8y ago
  I can never relate to people's love of this product. To me, it added noise and complexity to an otherwise simple email system. I aggressively tag, archive, and delete mail. I process and/or backlog messages in conjunction with calendar to always keep my inbox to <10 messages. The cognitive overhead to maintain this discipline has and will forever be ~0. Inbox is pure cruft over native Gmail. That's an offensive opinion to many, I know, but the intrinsic value inbox brings is very low over other highly accessible tooling already available within a few clicks.
• Mikeb85 8y ago
  This isn't huge news IMO. Lots of the UI changes have appeared in Gmail already and unless they were going to keep changing Inbox it no longer has a raison d'être. And while I know some people aren't a fan of Google shuttering products, I appreciate that they let you 'test' the bleeding edge if you want.
• Griever 8y ago
  As a heavy Inbox user this is definitely a bummer, but I do feel a bit relieved to know what is coming to Gmail. Last month a video showing some future updates to the Material Design components leaked. If you check out https://youtu.be/0mAude0774I?t=1m27s https://youtu.be/0mAude0774I?t=1m27s you can (briefly) see that the version of Gmail they're showing has a lot of functionality seen in Inbox, particularly Trip cards and expandable message bodies. Fingers crossed!
• jeffkeen 8y ago
  What a cruel joke! That was a really great product. I've completely given up hope of anything I love in technology lasting unless it's a paid product from a company that doesn't rely on advertising for revenue. Even then it's not perfect, but fuck if this isn't CLASSIC GOOGLE BULLSHIT. Sometimes it's killing a perfectly good product (ala Reader) after getting everyone to emotionally invest in it, and then there's the equally frustrating aquihire. Sell the lie that the beloved product will continue and that the team is so excited for the Incredible Journey[1] ahead and then bam, bullet to the head. Product killed. I still have scars from Reader, Sparrow, and Songza. And Mailbox! Looks like I switched to Fastmail just in time to avoid another heartbreak. Not too fancy but reliable AF and not going anywhere. Money well spent. Between this and Apple's post-Steve product decisions I'm becoming a curmudgeon in this current world of technology, wishing we could turn the clock back the clock nine years to when things made more sense. But honestly, in my fantasy world you know what I'd love to see? Some sort of statement that went along with an app detailing what their future plan is for cashing out or shutting down. Like, "If we don't survive as a business we will open source our product and provide an avenue for you to continue using it". Or, "We're building a sustainable lifestyle business and are not interested in being swallowed up by Google and being shut down" Or "We're looking to cash the fuck out ASAP! No guarantees; enjoy the ride!" I have fun dreams. [1] https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/ https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/
• sabujp 8y ago
  inbox made gmail slower, used more memory to display the same content, just give me alpine in a browser with decent search
• blablabla123 8y ago
  I would have ended up using it if I hadn't left GMail for good now. All the privacy revelations and planet-scale data mining of private data of the past years has led me to the conclusion it's better to self-host in the long-term. (Ads based on my E-Mail conversations, Snowden, ...) At the moment I have a patch work solution based on different providers but at some point it'll all be on my own servers. I kind of miss the crazy new features but the other stuff is developing at a faster pace then ever and gets unexpected features. Inbox is pretty cool, I can even use it when I'm completely drunk ;)
• smitti9 8y ago
  WHAT THE FUCK GOOGLE
• Illniyar 8y ago
  I think framing the conversation as a deprecation or discontinuation of a product is too generous towards Google. It makes it seem like the product has reached it's end of life. This isn't a discontinuation, it's a failure. If invoice was a startup this would be an "our incredible journey" article after the company has been acquired and it's product destroyed. Google has failed to monetize inbox. Similarly it's not that we don't use google products because we fear they'll discontinue it, google has failed too many times - you don't bet on a company that fails so often.
• fh973 8y ago
  Meanwhile Gmail search is still not working properly...
• jakeogh 8y ago
  Google: redefining reliable
• tluyben2 8y ago
  Damn. Only yesterday I said to a friend that Inbox is miles above other stuff I used. Bah Google. At least Open Source it then so we can take over :(
• aristotle2 8y ago
  Smart move. The UI wasn't that great, the product wasn't intuitive, and why would you have two inbox clients from one company? Normal people don't use Inbox, they just want to use regular Gmail and not think about it.
• divanvisagie 8y ago
  So... anyone know of an open source mail client that is designed around the same philosophy as inbox?
• kkarakk 8y ago
  Google says tasks is the replacement for the "snooze" feature but going to see deleted tasks is like i'm visiting the wayback machine -> https://mail.google.com/tasks/canvas https://mail.google.com/tasks/canvas genuinely made me go wtf
• jorisw 8y ago
  I've always used a particular email flow in Apple's Mail.app that allows me to use my email exactly as an Inbox user here calls it: "reminders as a first class citizen of your inbox". Is that what Inbox was for? If so, am I the only one that uses Mail.app (or whatever email client) like this? : https://jor.is/mail-flow.jpg https://jor.is/mail-flow.jpg In short: Sort by flags, then by date received. Keeps your actionables on top, even grouped by (flag color) category if you want. I never forget to deal with any of my emails.
• Fire-Dragon-DoL 8y ago
  This kills me. I loved the reminders mixed with emails, I didn't need any separate app: all notes abd emails abd reminders in a single giant todo interface. It's perfect. The migration guide states they have nothing for the reminders beside a stupid suggestion to use split screen with 2 apps on phone (which is not even close to what i need). I'm looking around for alternative products that behave like inbox.
• eterps 8y ago
  Time to start an open source version of Inbox? -> https://codepen.io/simoberny/pen/bdvMyj https://codepen.io/simoberny/pen/bdvMyj
• raihansaputra 8y ago
  I'm sure I'm repeating voices here, but I'm really sad. And the article also mentions Mailbox too which I used before and moved to Inbox because it had a similar interface/structure. I love grouped archive/delete, I love pins, I love snooze. Inbox, I feel, is the only sane way to do email. I don't know whether I want to even adopt a new product again, from anyone, and integrate it into my workflow. I've had Astrid (to Yahoo(?)), Sunshine Calendar (to Microsoft), Mailbox (to DropBox) gone and now it's Inbox. Maybe it is time to vote (and ask devs/companies to enable us to) with our wallets. I have Todoist and trying out Notion, I really hope they don't roll over soon. Now I kinda understand people who want to roll their own tools for everything.. You don't become dependent on others for what is important to you.
• oelmekki 8y ago
  I can see this being seen as a turning point in the future, if Google loses influence. Until now, every time people were saying "I won't use a new google product, I don't trust them to keep it running", they were quickly blamed by googlers who replied this team had nothing to do with that team, and that you could not blame google forever for having close greader on you. And it was reasonable to think greader was an accident and we could not hold grudge on everything from google because of it (not that google did not close other products, but they were not as popular and difficult to replace). But now, it's not an exception anymore, and it comes in a time when firefox is gathering new strength, when duckduckgo results are getting competitively good, when purism is working on a true linux phone... Google has been so strong this start of century not only because they had outstanding products, but also because they had a loyal and passionate hardcore users base. I can't see them not losing that, in the future (time will tell, obviously).
• bpye 8y ago
  Yikes. I loved Inbox and was using it until a couple months ago. I moved to FastMail because I wanted to host my email with another provider. I certainly won't be going back to Google now.
• hknd 8y ago
  They merged the most useful features from inbox into the new gmail (1), and (imho) that's a really good move. I'm really happy with gmai (and never was a "true" inbox user though). 1: https://www.blog.google/products/gmail/stay-composed-heres-quick-rundown-new-gmail/ https://www.blog.google/products/gmail/stay-composed-heres-q...
• Guillaume86 8y ago
  I'm another one of the disappointed long time users. Just tried Gmail again and the UI/UX is not yet there, the ads in the app is also a big downgrade... I also loved to use "save to inbox" feature (creating reminders from outside). It is a share option on android so accessible from pretty much anywhere and on PC I used the Inbox extension on chrome that has the same feature to save the current page. Now for the future... I'm probably dreaming but I wish the snooze/done paradigm would be provided by a stand-alone service and available system wide and in the cloud (with an open API). We should be able to "snooze" anything (a watsapp message, a sms, a web page) and select a date/location/device that will wake it again. Bundling could also be provided by the same service... Edit: that service should of course also replace the several tasks/reminders services and apps that google has created these last years.
  • deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
• jasonvorhe 8y ago
  I really don't get the problem here. Google's intentions for Inbox were always clear in that it was an experiment to see where mail could be headed and where they could try things that may find their way into Gmail. That's what they have done. Lots of features are now in Gmail. Now Inbox is being put to rest with about half a year of a retirement announcement in advance.
• yebyen 8y ago
  What is with this trend of "discontinuing" products that are already receiving little to no maintenance? Google is not the only one guilty of this. From the announcement, I get the idea that if I use Inbox today, it will be gone and I will no longer be able to use it after the EOL date is passed. Is it really that hard to keep the lights on, for a product for which development has already been finished? People like this product and it has features that no others do. I don't want to go back to using the Gmail app on my Android either. There are tens of thousands of unmaintained Android apps from developers who may have even died, or at least we may never hear from again. So why should this one need to be formally sunsetted? I am far more likely to quit email altogether, than to embrace a vanilla Gmail experience at this point.
• boomskats 8y ago
  I gave up on using Inbox a few months ago as I started to find it too slow, and absolutely _loved_ the refreshed Gmail and Calendar interfaces. However, I really hope that they fold the Reminders functionality from Keep into Gmail now, as the reminders integration across Inbox/Keep/Cal was one of my main reasons for sticking with it for as long as I did. That new Tasks interface is pretty, and I get what it's doing by trying to be a bit more like Todoist, but I think bringing full-on Reminders to Gmail as 'first class citizens' would make a lot of people miss Inbox much less, and probably get me to drop Todoist.
• Communitivity 8y ago
  I hate that they did this to Inbox, after they did something similar to Wave. But, I think this is how they operate. Their strategy seems to be to build a product, launch it, see if it reaches some hidden very high threshold of use, if it doesn't then discontinue it, and then either shelve it or open source it. I can't fault them for that strategy, even though I don't like the results, because I think that may be how they have to operate at their scale. I do wish they would have a policy of always open sourcing a product that they kill.
• luord 8y ago
  I'm really going to miss the remainders feature from inbox. Tried the task app for gmail and it doesn't even allow setting a time, just date. It also doesn't have anything like pinning links.
• domenukk 8y ago
  Inbox loads instantly and continues loading, GMail takes up to 10 Seconds in Firefox on a pretty decent machine...
• kjhosein 8y ago
  I was already a 'power' Gmail user when Inbox was released. I had developed muscle-memory for prob 20 keyboard shortcuts and used Gmail mouse-free, had dozens of labels, used a slew of Gmail Labs, and had given up using an external email client (used Gmail in a browser exclusively). Yet when Inbox came along, it was incredibly useful, especially on my phone. It was my choice of app for quickly digesting email on-the-go. I stopped using the Gmail app. But conversely on the desktop, I remained a Gmail user and never used Inbox. I understand that the rumors are that Bundles are coming to Gmail which is good and necessary. I can only hope that it's as seamless in the mobile app as it is now in Inbox. Long live Inbox!
• stephanierobe 8y ago
  If you're looking for an alternative to Google Inbox, you should give SaneBox a try. You can train it so only the emails you want to see end up in your inbox. Here's a $25 off code: www.sanebox.com/inbox
• Cub3 8y ago
  This was the last thing keeping me in the Google Ecosystem, shattered that they're killing it. I heavily used the trips mail bundling with "Google Trips" integration for both personal business trips. I think it's finally time to port my mail to another carrier
• dfleurantin 8y ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong but was the purpose of Inbox to test and experiment new features/functionality to be added to Gmail? It did not seem this was meant to be a long term solution.
• jon49 8y ago
  Inbox wasn't a web app. That's why never used it. You had to install the app onto your phone. Since I'm a light user of email this didn't make sense. From reading the comments I can see why people loved it as a full app though.
• darkvertex 8y ago
  For anyone wondering how to see your Inbox "pins" in Gmail, search for "label:pinned" (it's a secret label!)