I’ve seen this service recommended by some people - https://texts.com/
I haven’t used it myself but might be what you’re looking for.
Ask HN: Tips for Reducing the Number of Inboxes
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Re: Ask HN: Tips for Reducing the Number of Inboxes
#22I struggled with this a couple of years ago and then decided I will reduce the channels. Now I have email (asynchronous/long-form/personal/professional), signal (personal networks) and linkedin (professional network). That's it.
This has been very helpful for me and I no longer have the fear of missing out.
If it is important enough, people know how best to reach me.
Re: Ask HN: Tips for Reducing the Number of Inboxes
#23You know the advice that if a friend is only a friend because you are connected on Facebook, maybe you aren't really friends? That same logic holds true if your relationships are dependent on any specific app.
Decide what you are comfortable keeping up with, and tell your tribe to use those methods to contact you.
Re: Ask HN: Tips for Reducing the Number of Inboxes
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
And receive unrelated spam? No thanks. While emails and texts are fine, I 100% would not trust linked in with push notifications
Doesn't Android allow you to select which category of notifications you want to receive? That can be useful here.
The problem is that it is a blacklist not a whitelist. So these apps that spam a lot just create a new category every week.
It would be fantastic if you could switch some apps to whitelist mode.
Re: Ask HN: Tips for Reducing the Number of Inboxes
#25just stop using all of those apps - done. Pick 2-3 and cut the rest.
OP's point is clearly to stay connected with his friends etc. So simply stopping isn't solving the problem.
OP says he has friends that say they only use Messenger or only Signal etc, and everyone has their own preference. Sounds like they have the right idea! Why be the only one accommodating everybody.
Re: Ask HN: Tips for Reducing the Number of Inboxes
#26Why do you have to check anything manually? Just install their apps and receive push notifications for them. You can also make the notifications silent to reduce distractions. Or if your phone supports notification badges on icons, just place their icons on home screen and you'll notice what app has updates by just checking the badge counts.
And receive unrelated spam? No thanks. While emails and texts are fine, I 100% would not trust linked in with push notifications
Who sends you personal messages on LinkedIn? Personally, I don't even trust LinkedIn to have an app installed on my phone. But I haven't received even a single spam notification from any of the major chat platforms.
Re: Ask HN: Tips for Reducing the Number of Inboxes
#27I’ve seen this service recommended by some people - https://texts.com/ I haven’t used it myself but might be what you’re looking for.
> Texts charges users a monthly subscription to use the app.
This is the _only_ reference to the pricing on their website. I'm not signing up to the app just to see what the pricing is, it's baffling they don't include that information on their main website.
Re: Ask HN: Tips for Reducing the Number of Inboxes
#28My personal is:
- own your own domain name, so you can transfer it as needed
- own your email, having as many aliases as you need
- download ALL your mails locally (fetchmail, OfflineIMAP, mbsync, ...) perhaps on a homeserver and use them in a local maildir with a local client, like notmuch, so you have a unified inbox for anything
- avoid proprietary messaging platforms and teach others to do the same
that's works for me so far, surely many try to put pressure on me for WA, Slack etc but I always successfully decline. Anything is NOT ONLY centralized but also unified. In the same tool (Emacs/EXWM) I have mails, feeds, usenet etc I do not like much Gnus but in that case I can also get HN and Reddit there, with the same UIs, local antispam, local scoring etc.
The tip is always the same: as any of us you feel the need of classic desktop model and we all miss it, but something we can still do to have some kind of substitutes :-)
Re: Ask HN: Tips for Reducing the Number of Inboxes
#29I have Blackberry Hub on my phone. I found it only marginally useful at first but it does integrate with all big services (if you have the apps installed) and centralizes the viewing of it. I am not a powers or use it very much but it available maybe you can check that out. Pretty sure there are other 3rd parties that do this little trick.
Re: Ask HN: Tips for Reducing the Number of Inboxes
#30The EU is planning to require big online messaging services to be interoperable. https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/24/22995431/european-union-d... This would solve it. Then you could simply use a single app. This is a political thing. So, vote for it, talk to the politicians.
I don't see how this is possible if you also have E2EE. Great example is email encryption via PGP. It exists, it's used (rarely) in some cases, but it's so poorly implemented to the point of being useless unless