A new startup, Mailman, recently launched an email assistant that helps Gmail users gain better control over their inbox. Unlike many email startups, which require users to switch to a new platform or even adopt a new email address, Mailman works together with your existing Gmail account to do things like block annoying emails, delivery of batch email, set up VIPs that can bypass filters and even silence your inbox for a period of time.
The service is the latest in a long line of email startups that have arrived over the years, promising an updated email experience - the most recent being Hey from Basecamp, a new app that offers an email service. hosted with an expanded set of tools for tidying up your inbox.
But many people don't want to switch to a new email platform or client app and generally don't want to adopt a new email address. They just want to tame their existing inbox. This is where Mailman comes in.
The service works by authenticating with your Google account, where you give it permission to manage mailbox labels and basic email settings (like moving mail to a deferred folder). Also, you give Mailman the ability to view and edit but not delete emails.
It is worth noting and carefully considering the latter permission. Anyone with sensitive information in their inbox may not want to give third parties access to manage their inbox. But probably, any really sensitive material should not be transferred by e-mail at first, as any security expert would say.
For what it's worth, Mailman claims not to store unused customer data directly in the Mailman interface and not to monetize your email data, as does Gmail itself. It also claims to only read the timestamp, sender address, and subject line, not the body of your emails, when assisting you in managing your inbox. Mailman also claims to encrypt the data it stores in its database, on servers located in the United States, Canada, and India. And it's GDPR compliant, which means you can permanently delete all your data with the click of a button.
Regardless, you'll need to weigh the risks with the potential benefits of using any email add-on, due to its need to get access to your inbox to work.
If you choose to proceed and Mailman has access to manage your inbox, you can choose to use any of its features to stem the flow of email.
One of the biggest problems with email is that it continually arrives throughout the day as soon as emails are sent. This means that you end up responding to emails on the sender's schedule instead of your own.
Mailman introduces a couple of options to solve this problem.
If you want to carve out some free time from email to work without being disturbed by your inbox, you can set up a Do Not Disturb schedule that holds your email for the specified period.
Another feature lets you choose to receive emails in batches at a set number of times per day or at specific configured times. In this case, Mailman holds emails from your inbox until these delivery intervals, allowing you to set the times you will work on email, instead of allowing email to focus during the day.
The service also allows you to prioritize important emails and block others. You can add senders, domains and even keywords to a "VIP" list which allows those emails to bypass filters so you always see urgent emails. This could help make sure you don't miss critical emails from your boss or an important customer, for example, even if you use other tools to tame your inbox.
Unimportant emails, meanwhile, can be blocked automatically as Mailman can block newsletters, notifications, and emails from senders you've never interacted with before. However, it doesn't delete these emails. Instead, you will receive a daily digest that will allow you to choose how to treat those emails in the future, such as whether they should be automatically blocked from now on, or sent immediately.
Over time, this can help train Mailman to make sure you get your important emails with fewer distractions.
You don't need to use all the tools Mailman provides - you can pick and choose the ones you need while leaving the others out, the company notes. And since all the filtering is done within the Gmail service itself, you can continue to use the email client of your choice.
The startup was founded by a serial entrepreneur Mohit Mamoria, now CEO of Mailman, and Andrew Wilkinson, founder of MetaLab who now invests and collaborates with startups through Tiny. Mailman is incubating under the Tiny umbrella, where it receives help with marketing, UX, and early customer acquisition, among other things.
Mamoria explains, he and Wilkinson were both looking for different ways to tame their inbox. Mamoria had built a script called Duggo to do this. When he saw a tweet asking about Wilkinson's inbox tools (below), he contacted.
How can I achieve this using Superhuman + Gmail:
I want to receive batches of emails a couple of times a day versus constantly scrolling emails.
I just want new emails 2-3 times a day. Like an old school postman.
Some idea?
- Andrew Wilkinson (@awilkinson) February 17, 2020
The two have decided to collaborate and are done Mailman launch in the August 2020 beta, where it has already gained just under 3,000 users. As of last week, Mailman has become available to the public. It was announced via a Product Hunt post in which it was endorsed by numerous fellow entrepreneurs and founders. Some have even contributed testimonials to the Mailman website.
To some extent, you can use Gmail filters to manage your inbox today, but they're not that easy to use. And email services don't offer tools to set up batch deliveries or silence times, leaving users to tend to silence their outages by postponing push notifications on their devices instead. Due to the failure of email apps to innovate, new services like Hey, Superhuman, and others have sprung up, hoping to provide a better experience for power users.
Mailman, like some rivals, generates revenue through subscriptions - it costs $ 10 per month or $ 96 per year. It's cheaper than the popular new Superhuman email service, which runs Gmail through its $ 30-per-month client, but has been called too expensive.
Co-founders believe Mailman has the potential to reach a wider audience than other startups that tame their inbox because it respects that users want to keep their existing email and client app.
"Almost everyone who tried to solve the inbox overload went in the direction of creating an email client," says Mamoria. "[Basecamp's] Hey went above and beyond to create an email service entirely. What's missing is that switching email clients or services is easier said than done. It requires a huge change in behavior and is usually the biggest hurdle for an average user to overcome, "he says.
Mailman is available today and works exclusively with Google accounts. It may implement support for other email providers in the future, but nothing is currently planned in that area.