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Monolist: working hard to preserve the spirit of Inbox's organizational features

monolist.co

11–20 of 56 posts

Re: Monolist: working hard to preserve the spirit of Inbox's organizational features

#11

This seems like a potentially good service, but as 'kcon said, not an Inbox replacement. It doesn't do bundling, snoozing, or pinning for emails, which are the key features of Inbox.

We already have snoozing for items that come into Monolist, and bundling is on our radar as well. We're working on a Gmail integration right now so we'll pull in any emails you actually read automatically, and let you label/organize/snooze/bundle/reply all without leaving the feed.

I want to reiterate that bundling is absolutely essential to me. Specifically I make newsletters come once a week and burn through them batch so that I don’t get distracted; I bundle activism emails together so that I can be engaged but don’t feel spammed all the time; etc. without that I also would feel no strong reason to use Monolist - hope you make something powerful!

Re: Monolist: working hard to preserve the spirit of Inbox's organizational features

#12
post #8

In addition to what others said below, an iOS app is a hard requirement for me. Gonna have to pass for now but cheering you on.

Thanks! We have an iOS app coming up. If you sign up or message me your email, we can notify you when it's done.

I signed up so can’t wait to hear back.

Re: Monolist: working hard to preserve the spirit of Inbox's organizational features

#13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! We have an iOS app coming up. If you sign up or message me your email, we can notify you when it's done.

I signed up so can’t wait to hear back.

Thanks! Also completely understand the need for an iOS app, but just so you know the mobile experience and full responsiveness are top considerations when we ship new features.

Re: Monolist: working hard to preserve the spirit of Inbox's organizational features

#14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already have snoozing for items that come into Monolist, and bundling is on our radar as well. We're working on a Gmail integration right now so we'll pull in any emails you actually read automatically, and let you label/organize/snooze/bundle/reply all without leaving the feed.

I want to reiterate that bundling is absolutely essential to me. Specifically I make newsletters come once a week and burn through them batch so that I don’t get distracted; I bundle activism emails together so that I can be engaged but don’t feel spammed all the time; etc. without that I also would feel no strong reason to use Monolist - hope you make something powerful!

Thanks, we'll reach out as we spec out bundling, looking forward to hearing your feedback.

Re: Monolist: working hard to preserve the spirit of Inbox's organizational features

#15
post #3
post #2

I think "Google Inbox Replacement" is misleading if your workflow assumes users will use Gmail in addition to Monolist: > We’re working on a Gmail integration as you read this! To start, the emails you star in Gmail and any threads that you haven’t responded to will become action items in Monolist, but we have plans for much more. Personally I don't think I would use Monolist because I want to replace Google Inbox wi…

It's possible I'm misunderstanding, but it also seems like they're more oriented on being a task list instead of a true email client. Inbox to me was just a much nicer gmail, though I understand a lot of people used it like a email based todo list and monolist might appeal to them

Yeah, that’s me - I basically use email as a task queue that other people can append to as well as myself, for low time urgency types of tasks, and have separate ways of dealing with the stuff I need to do more urgently.

Re: Monolist: working hard to preserve the spirit of Inbox's organizational features

#16
post #2

I think "Google Inbox Replacement" is misleading if your workflow assumes users will use Gmail in addition to Monolist: > We’re working on a Gmail integration as you read this! To start, the emails you star in Gmail and any threads that you haven’t responded to will become action items in Monolist, but we have plans for much more. Personally I don't think I would use Monolist because I want to replace Google Inbox wi…

That's fair (cofounder here). Our eventual goal is to replace Gmail for any work/transactional emails. We're taking the approach of doing that one integration at a time, and providing a richer experience. We do think that there's a world in which both of them are useful though. The problem as we see it right now with Gmail is you may receive a notification about a pull request or whatever, but you can't do anything w…

akshaynathan, if I am understanding this right the eventual goal of monolist is to be the bucket for all incoming notifications and communications, and the be-all-end-all for quickly replying to or addressing action items. If that is right I am hoping you the best of luck because I've long wanted something like that. Someplace where my todo list, my inbox, my chatbox, my git repo notifications, my slack notifications all live would be awesome!

Re: Monolist: working hard to preserve the spirit of Inbox's organizational features

#17
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fair (cofounder here). Our eventual goal is to replace Gmail for any work/transactional emails. We're taking the approach of doing that one integration at a time, and providing a richer experience. We do think that there's a world in which both of them are useful though. The problem as we see it right now with Gmail is you may receive a notification about a pull request or whatever, but you can't do anything w…

akshaynathan, if I am understanding this right the eventual goal of monolist is to be the bucket for all incoming notifications and communications, and the be-all-end-all for quickly replying to or addressing action items. If that is right I am hoping you the best of luck because I've long wanted something like that. Someplace where my todo list, my inbox, my chatbox, my git repo notifications, my slack notifications…

yeah, thats exactly the goal! In fact we already have git/slack notifications right now. It would be awesome if you could try it out and let us know what you think.

Re: Monolist: working hard to preserve the spirit of Inbox's organizational features

#20
I can see why this title seems misleading, but I think it really depends on how you use Inbox and what features you care most about. What I'm really going to miss with Inbox is how my e-mails were framed as tasks that I needed to get through each day. I could easily check them off, or snooze them with an implied priority (later today, this weekend, someday, etc.).

I found a lot of value in that, so I hope that I'll find a lot of value in Monolist. I haven't found a task management app that successfully incorporates many integrations (that I actually use) in a way that is useful, and intuitive. I think there are a lot of opportunities to add delightful features, looking forward to giving feedback!

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