My open letter to Google Inbox. Share your thoughts.

[jean15paul]

So I got my Inbox invite yesterday and used the service for a few hours. It's a SLICK interface, and I like it, except it completely doesn't work with my existing email management practices. I clicked the "Help and Feedback" link and sent this to Google's Inbox team. I post it here because:

1. I assume many Android enthusiasts are also Gmail power users and that's who my feedback hopes to help.
2. I'd like to get thoughts from this community of Android enthusiast on my feedback.
3. I don't want to see you all try Inbox and immediately write it off. My first impression is that Inbox is a GOOD system that needs some improvements to make it great.
4. PROFIT!

Below is my open letter to Inbox...

Hi Inbox Team,

I've just started using Inbox, and it is a pretty cool concept. I think it does have the potential to change the way people interact with their email, and it could be the killer app that attracts people to Gmail and Google services instead of competing platforms. I do have a couple of suggestions that would make Inbox more useful to me and probably to many other users.

Inbox seems to do a good job applying some order and organization to unorganized inboxes. This makes it great for people who just leave everything in their inbox. But there are some improvements that could be made to Inbox to make it more useful to people who already organize their emails using Gmail's existing tools.

1) In Inbox you can mark something as "Done" and hide it from view. But when I go back to Gmail, that message is still sitting in my inbox. "Done" in Inbox should be directly connected to "Archive" in Gmail, since it has a very similar function. When I mark something as "Done" in Inbox, I want it to be Archived in Gmail. Similarly, things that I've already archived in Gmail, I don't want to see in Inbox. You could make this optional if you think that everyone may not want this.

2) I try to be very diligent with applying Labels to my email in Gmail, and I even have some filters set up to automatically label certain emails as they arrive. It would be great if my Gmail Labels could automatically show up as Bundles in Inbox. I have dozens of Labels so I think it would make sense to be able to pick and choose which ones show up as Bundles. And again this would give the option to turn all off. This would also prevent me from having to manually recreate my Gmail Labels as Inbox Bundles.

I hope this helps. First impression is that I like Inbox and I want to see it succeed. I think these two improvement will make Inbox much more appealing to the Gmail power-user and contribute to Inbox's success.

I hope this helps,
{signature and contact info deleted}

 

[SpookDroid]

I thought your first point was just what Inbox did. At least in the few hours I used it that's what happened when I marked something as DONE (and the actual reason I stopped using it): The e-mail went to Archive, which is not actually filed in an Archive section but only visible in the ALL MAIL option in GMail. I wanted a quick way to delete e-mails like I can with GMail (swipe from the notification bar or from the app) and there is not a Delete option like that in Inbox, only DONE, which in what I experienced, translated into Archive for GMail (and yes, I know you can delete stuff by going into the message or multiple selection, but that's not 'quick' as swiping away).

As for your second point, I agree. Labels should be able to bundle together in Inbox. It only makes sense.

 

[gone down south]

Yeah, your number 1 already works that way for me.

 

[jean15paul]

I thought your first point was just what Inbox did. At least in the few hours I used it that's what happened when I marked something as DONE (and the actual reason I stopped using it): The e-mail went to Archive, which is not actually filed in an Archive section but only visible in the ALL MAIL option in GMail. I wanted a quick way to delete e-mails like I can with GMail (swipe from the notification bar or from the app) and there is not a Delete option like that in Inbox, only DONE, which in what I experienced, translated into Archive for GMail (and yes, I know you can delete stuff by going into the message or multiple selection, but that's not 'quick' as swiping away).

As for your second point, I agree. Labels should be able to bundle together in Inbox. It only makes sense.

Yeah, your number 1 already works that way for me.

Yeah, you're right. I was sure I was seeing emails that I already archived in Inbox, but I guess not ... that's a big help.