Google Inbox is now open to everybody, without an invitation.
It used to be the case that if you wanted Google’s Inbox app for your mobile device, you needed to request an invitation. That is no longer necessary.
Now, Google has opened the proverbial floodgates and anyone who wants Inbox can download it from the App Store or Google Play. This is great news for people who want to streamline their Gmail usage.
What Is Inbox?
If you haven’t seen it yet, you can think of Inbox as an intelligent front-end to your Gmail account.
You might be accustomed to using an email application that shows you all of your latest emails, displaying them in descending order based on the time that they were sent. The emails that you haven’t read yet will typically be highlighted and the ones that you have read will appear in normal font.
That’s how it is with most email systems. However, Inbox takes email browsing to the next level by organizing your inbox for you in ways that you’ll find convenient. It’s a modern day answer to the boring inbox structure that you’ve been accustomed to seeing.
Google claims that the app is based on everything the company learned from Gmail. So, if you’re a frequent Gmail user, then the learning curve for the Inbox app should be brief.
Promotions
If you’re getting offers from people or organizations, Inbox will organize those offers into one place, so that you can see them all at once. Navigating around and into them is as easy as doing anything else with your mobile device: You point and click or hold and slide.
Use this feature of Inbox to pay attention to money-saving promotions and filter out the ones that you don’t want. It’s a quick and easy way to find the offers are most important to you.
Purchases
You just bought something on Amazon two days ago but you’re now uncertain if it was the right item. You’d like to go through your email to find the digital receipt, however, you’ve received hundreds of emails since then.
Fortunately, that’s not a problem with Inbox. The app organizes all of your purchases together so that you can navigate to them quickly. You’ll easily be able to review order confirmations and receipts from e-commerce sites.
It gets better. You’ll also be able to view your order status without opening the email. Inbox displays that information directly on its front page.
Trips
Are you a frequent flyer? If so, then Inbox will organize all of your trips into one easy-to-access location as well. You’ll have the opportunity to pull up a calendar-like interface that will give you your traveling schedule for the next month, two months, six months or any other time frame that you specify.
As an added bonus, you’ll be able to see your flight status without even opening the email. Inbox will show you the information directly on its front page.
Custom Bundles
Didn’t see anything that you like in the above categories? That’s no problem; you can create a bundle of your own.
Maybe you’d like to categorize all emails received from people in your book club into one bundle. Perhaps you’re part of a Meetup group and you’d like to bundle all of the emails from members of that group together. Inbox makes it easy for you to organize emails based on the people who sent them.
To-Do’s
No productivity app is complete without features that enable you to manage your to-do’s. Inbox does that as well.
You can add your to-do’s to the top of your inbox. The app will also help you get them done. It will alert you when you have an action item that’s due and, if you’re busy with something else, you can just hit the snooze button.
Inbox is a great way to improve your productivity with one of the most respected names in online computing. Now that it’s available to everyone without an invitation, isn’t it time that you took a look at it?
Image by Negative Space
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