Maybe you have never heard of the Mailbox App, but lots of other people had. At one point there were thousands of people on a waiting list to be able to use the app.
Mailbox greatly simplified email. It had all kinds of features to increase your productivity and help you get to ‘inbox zero’ (that’s the term all the cool kids use). In fact, it worked so well integrating email with other apps, that another app company, Dropbox, bought Mailbox for around $100 million in 2013.
It seemed like the perfect match. But due to changing business conditions, and Dropbox’s emphasis on collaboration, Mailbox was no longer a fit. They announced the end of Mailbox in December of 2015. On February 26th, 2016, Mailbox posted this on their blog:
Obviously, the demand for a great email app was still there. And when there’s demand, there’s opportunity. Several other apps have jumped on board to replace Mailbox. Wanna take a look?
The ‘Many-Sided’ App Called Polymail
Polymail is still in the Beta testing phase, but already seems to be very useful and popular. Unfortunately, it only works with iOS for now (sorry Android users). If you have Apple products though, you might really like it.
Many of the email features in Polymail are similar to Mailbox:
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Email Tracking – The ability to see that someone opened your email and when they did it. It will also provide you a list when you send an email to multiple recipients.
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Archiving – Removing your email from your inbox quickly but saving it in case you need it
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Delayed Send – Easily set a time that you want your email to go out to someone if you don’t want to send it right away.
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Snooze – Archive an email but have it pop back into your inbox later to remind you about it
These features alone seem worthwhile in this free app, but wait… there’s more! Polymail has the ability to search through Social Media and pull out information on the people who email you.
With all the information, you can tailor your email messages to that particular person.
You can also remember all your interactions with that person, because Polymail lists your emails to that person at the bottom of their contact profile. It also has a separate tab for showing all their attachments.
As of the writing of this lesson, Polymail only works with Gmail and other Google Apps and iCloud email. They are working to integrate Hotmail, Yahoo and IMAP email addresses soon.
See the Magic in the Cloud
Android users don’t need to feel left out. Another service, Cloud Magic, has many of the same features as Polymail, but can be used on any platform or operating system. It is also compatible with all types of email including Hotmail, Yahoo Mail and IMAP emails. It even has a special feature to work well with Apple iWatches.
The app is free for all systems except Apple iOS. You can download it for free on your iPhone and iPad, but it’s $19.99 at the Mac App store. Go figure.
Cloud Magic has the ability to archive emails after you read them. If you click on the star in the top right corner of the email and hold it for a few seconds, you can also select a delay time. Like Polymail, the time delay will cause the email to pop back into your inbox when you want.
Unlike Polymail, Cloud Magic does not seem to have the ability to schedule emails to go out at a later date and time.
A nice feature of Cloud Magic is its ‘Card System.’ When you open an email, there will be a small square that appears just to the left of the ‘reply’ button. When you tap on it, Cloud Magic presents you with various ‘cards’ that are links to other productivity programs.
Cloud Magic currently connects to multiple other programs such as:
It becomes very easy to save an email to Evernote, or add an email address to your blog list on Mailchimp.
It is also very easy to add attachments to your email in Cloud Magic. When you want an attachment, Cloud Magic presents you with a list of Cloud folders you might have (Dropbox, Google Docs, etc.). You can quickly select the file you want.
Like Polymail, Cloud Magic makes managing your inbox much simpler, and lets you get on to making money in real estate.
Other Potential Email Apps
Another recently introduced email client is Spark. Spark is billed as having a ‘smart inbox.’ It collects your emails as they come in and organizes them for faster processing.
As you look through your email, you can just swipe important ones and ‘pin’ them to the top of your account to keep them visible. Swipe the email again and it will snooze until you want to look at it later.
The ‘categories’ feature also recognizes ‘newsletter’ emails and puts them in a separate box. If you want to delete a lot of them quickly, or put them in groups into another folder, Spark makes it very easy.
Like the other email clients, Spark can be set for automatic push notifications. But with Spark, you can customize the notifications for when only important messages come through. If you want to reply to emails quickly, you can also hit a quick ‘Like,’ ‘Smile’ or ‘Thanks’ to send a reaction in very little time.
Spark is free but only works on the iPhone and iPad.
For Android, there are not a ton of other email clients to rival the Gmail App. Now that Google can support other email addresses (IMAP, POP, Hotmail/Exchange and Yahoo) on the same account, it becomes much more useful.
Google has some nice features such as:
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Blocking emails from annoying people
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Archiving emails like Polymail and Cloud Magic
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Sorting messages by importance
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Automatic vacation notifications
It just doesn’t have all the features of the other email clients in this lesson. Hopefully, more email options for Android users will appear soon.
Share Your Thoughts
Do you have experience with any of these systems? Tell us about it in the comments section below.
Organize Your Email – The last thing you want to do is miss an email from a motivated seller.
Look into ‘Inbox Zero’- It doesn’t mean just emptying your inbox. It means controlling the time you spend on your inbox and becoming very productive.
Be Cognizant of Other People’s Time – Everyone gets a ton of email. When you write an email, make it as short as possible. Get right to the point. And try to make it so it doesn’t require a ton of back and forth replies.