The last business week in January is Clean Out Your Inbox Week. Here are some special email tools to help:
I use the Spike email app daily. The reason I love it is because I don’t know about you but when I am on my phone, it’s hard for me to look at long emails and respond because of all the header and footer add-ons. The emails just seem thick, and it’s hard for me to scroll through and find the very short two sentences that I need to respond to.
Spike conquers the over-scroll problem by breaking up my email to look like chat, rather than having a long email. For example, when I’m writing back and forth with my manager, Spike makes it look like I’m just texting her. On her end, they come in as regular emails, but my side cuts out all the fluff and just leaves the meat of the conversation.
This has helped me so much and being able to pop off little messages rather than wading through and finding the one sentence I need to respond to. One problem I have though, is that it looks so much like the chat is that sometimes when I write her back, I’ll write back two words. And then I’ll think of another sentence I need to write, and I’ll write back again with another two words, forgetting that every time I do that, she gets two emails.
The “conversational email” function is my favorite feature, but Spike has more cool options. It helps you segregate emails into notes, attachments and more. I use the free version, which has their branding in the signature. Perhaps when I start traveling again I’ll upgrade.
In this day and age, we’re always concerned about security, and there’s not an email that’s more secure (probably) than ProtonMail. It’s a free, encrypted email system based in Switzerland, although they do have some upgrades. ProtonMail encrypts your email, meaning your data is secure against breaches and third-party access.
I don’t know if you have ever used Gmail, but it’s phenomenal. When I was reviewing email tools for The BIGGER Book of Apps, I discovered that Gmail is by far the best at catching spam. Plus it gets bonus points for its ability to work with other third-party email tools, such as Spike (above).
When I say the spam tool is phenomenal, I mean it. I rarely see junk. Gmail’s spam-filtering superiority was evident when I tried out other email tools. I was disgusted by the amount of spam that the other tools let in!
And now for something completely different. Hey was built from the people who developed Basecamp, the pioneering project management tool. Hey is email reimagined, according to their site.
Hey is $99 a year for a hey.com email, and this quarter they are supposed to be launching their professional version where you can import your own email address.
I haven’t tried it yet, but the feature list is intriguing:
