Inbox by Gmail

While Gmail has long served as Google's proprietary email tool and has earned substantive praise for its features and design, Inbox by Gmail looks to build on those features and create a more robust experience able to carry Google into the future. While it's unlikely that most people will replace the traditional Gmail browser client with Inbox byGmail, in large part because of that system's ease of access and use, it brings some exciting and innovative new ideas to the table, and these could change how developers approach email inbox design for the long term future.

Despite these changes, this is clearly a Google product, and it won't take a long time to learn the ins and outs if you've ever worked with Gmail before. The user interface and prominence of blue and other primary colors identify its brand identity pretty easily, and it's a design sensibility that's managed to hold up well over the years. This is a platform that looks good whether you're accessing it on your phone, your desktop or your laptop. What Inbox by Gmail hopes to do is preemptively prevent the problems of sorting through your email. Messages can stack up quickly, and even one day away from your work computer can leave you with a cluttered pile of a mess to deal with. That can add up in almost no time at all, and Inbox looks to organize your messages so you can tackle them in the most effective manner possible. Inbox by Gmail is undoubtedly a Gmail product, and syncing it up to your existing Gmail account is as easy as it is logging in to your browser. But Inbox was the first to launch a wealth of different functions as well. Organizational components are built into three main categories. The algorithms that run Inbox rely on bundles that automatically categorize your emails according to a number of different categories and filters and tags them accordingly. But just because your messages are properly filtered doesn't mean that you don't have to sort through a lot. That's why the highlights function allows users to scan over the most important information without having to open a message. These two functions are complemented by reminders and the snooze button which allow you to integrate a more robust form of calendar functionality straight into your inbox.

In terms of features, Inbox by Google is sort of a kitchen sink approach to an email client. Those standard functions are sprinkled with a whole batch of features that include general automation services and auto-suggestions based on your past experience. All in all, it feels almost like a test bed for future versions of Gmail, a theory further bolstered by the fact that most of Inbox's most successful functions have already been folded into the standard Gmail interface. While Inbox is an innovative idea, it may have grown irrelevant simply due to the sheer popularity of traditional Gmail.