As we all know, email is about as broken as the current Congress. Over the course of roughly 100 interviews with highly active emailers, several common complaints emerged:
- So much email, so little time to process it all
- So much superfluous email
- Inability to find important emails
- Inability to find older emails
There isn’t a panacea (yet!), but each of the following 8 apps, plugins, and services solves at least one of the aforementioned complaints.
If you get too many newsletters:
- Unroll.me
- Works with: Gmail/Google Apps
If you want to be able to defer some emails and remind yourself about others:
- Boomerang
- Works with: Gmail/Google Apps, Outlook
If you want to convert text to calendar items in one-click:
- Boomerang Calendar
- Works with: Gmail
If you need to see important emails first, and Priority Inbox isn't cutting it:
- Sanebox
- Works with: Gmail/Google Apps, Outlook, Yahoo! Mail, AOL Mail and more
If you want sleeker, more navigable versions of Apple Mail and Mail.app:
- Sparrow for Mac and Sparrow for iPhone (now property of Google)
- Works with: Gmail/Google Apps, iCloud, MobileMe, AOL Mail, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, MSN, Live Mail
If you want diesel search:
- Cloud Magic
- Works with: Gmail/Google Apps, Exchange
If there are certain senders whose emails you want to see instantly, at all hours:
- AwayFind
- Works with: Gmail/Google Apps, Outlook, Exchange, Android, iPhone
If you want to be able to do anything you can do from a browser inside your inbox:
- PowerInbox
- Works with: Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, Outlook, Chrome, FireFox, Safari, IE
If you want better threading (who doesn't?):
- Fluent
- Works with: Gmail
Have you used any of these tools? Are there any I haven’t mentioned that you love? Drop a line in the comments or get @ me!