More than a year ago INBOX by Google appeared and as I like to try new things everytime I didn’t doubt it and dive into it… but not for long. Since the minute I wanted to reply an email in-line and I couldn’t I gave it up (I don’t remember whether I was trying to do so from the android app or the web inteface - but that doesn’t matter).
A couple of weeks ago I thought to give it a new try.
One of the things I like about it is the snooze function (to time or place), that helps me to don’t forget to reply something at a different moment while cleaning the clutter in the inbox. I also like some of the bundles (trips gives me a nice overview of where I’ve been). Another is how in the mobile version provides you with a list of possible short answers and I used it twice in a week! However, there are things that I don’t like, and these are quite important in my workflow that I’m not going to change now.
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What happened with tags? I use tags a lot, what I like about tags is how you can have an email belonging to two places. Here they have folders and unless you have predefined filters that tag them you won’t be able to archive the email in two places.
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Some emails are not were you expect to be. The other day I’ve got an email from a colleague who had previously email me about a trip. Since he didn’t wrote a new email from scratch, just took the old one, clicked reply and change the subject (at least changed the subject! not everyone does that) INBOX bundle that email in the trips section, which since I know I’m not travelling till next month I was not paying attention to it.
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emails are shown in descending time order, so the newer ones on the top - That’s ok. However they get bundles, and when you click in one in a bundle you see the others (older ones) below, and maybe you want to read that one too… but then when you finish with the new one the whole page changes and you don’t see that old email in that place anymore, you have to go to that particular bundle (if you actually remember which bundle it was) and find the email.
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there’s not a refresh button… and [that’s used in gmail to update your pop3 email accounts][gmailpop]. So, if you use gmail to read a number of external accounts, then they will update just at the frequency that google does it and you cannot make it faster if sometimes you need it… which it makes a one-to-one quick conversation by email (not everyone uses the same chatting platform) being delayed.
So, maybe I’m doing my email wrong (that would explain why I cannot keep my email ever clean of unread messages), or that INBOX is not for me. Either way, I’m switching back to the plain gmail and keep with my life.
[gmailpop] https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/gmail/wjEdg3H0yFI
