App of the Week: Mailbox

Mailbox is a new type of mail app. Created by the makers of Orchestra, a productivity management app, Mailbox claims to put traditional email in it’s place.

And that it does.

Think of the hundreds, if not thousands of emails that get lost in your inbox during a busy day at work (or normal day, if you’re important like that). You have to make a mental note to go back to them or flag them as important in order to follow up. Think of all the emails that simply aren’t important that clutter your inbox needlessly and distract you from getting your work done. Mailbox tackles these problems in an intuitive, clean and fast way. Here’s why the team at Hover loves Mailbox:

Swipe messages to archive or trash ‘em

Mailbox allows you to treat incoming emails in one of three ways: The one’s you’d like to keep in your inbox, those you’d like to save for later, and those you’d like to simply get rid of. Mailbox is all about simple gestures, so with one swipe, classify any email as one of the above.

Keep only what matters

You can choose to keep only the emails that are of most importance at that given time. For the rest, simply swipe to have them appear later (whether it be in ten minutes, a day or someday) or swipe to delete them altogether.

Reaching inbox zero… and keeping it there.

With Mailbox, only the things I need to address now are in my inbox. And I love the sense of accomplishment of getting my inbox to zero. Apart from feeling like I’ve gotten things done, my mailbox feels lighter and I have peace of mind in knowing that I can access any of my archived messages from the dock.

The Downsides

#1 There’s currently a queue to actually get the app. I waited approximately two weeks in ‘line’ (started at around 700,000th place), but the pace quickened as time went on. A couple of my coworkers were one of the ‘chosen ones’ picked at random to skip the line, though. So cross your fingers and hope for the best.

#2 For now, Mailbox will only support Gmail and Google Apps accounts. Other clients will be added as the app grows. Hover has a great tutorial on how to use your Hover mail with Gmail.

So if you don’t mind waiting in line and you primarily use Gmail for your email, this is a great app. Download it for the iPhone here.

Have you used Mailbox? Are you currently waiting in line? Let us know in the comments what you think of the app!