Former Google employees resurrect Google Inbox interface as “shortwave” email

Google Inbox died almost three years ago, but people haven’t forgotten. Google promised to bring many of Inbox’s innovations to its surviving email client, Gmail, but never did. If you’re still missing Inbox and how easy it is to manage your email, it might be time to move beyond Google’s client offerings.

Meet Shortwave, a new email startup from several ex-Google employees that mimics the Google Inbox interface. All of Inbox’s major innovations are back: emails are collected into “packages”called things like “updates”, “promotions”and “social media”, and messages can also be categorized by age. Importantly, the Clean Up button is back, allowing you to mark multiple emails in a batch as Done with a single click.

In fact, Shortwave is not yet a standalone email service. Like Inbox, this is an alternative client for Gmail. On the one hand, this means it’s super easy to try. On the other hand, you will need to give this app access to your Gmail account and all your mail. It’s a scary offer from a new company, but the people behind Shortwave deserve respect. The project was conceived by a group of ex-Google employees from Firebase’s push messaging division. The monetization strategy is also not evilA: Like Slack, Shortwave is free to use with a limited 90-day access to your email history. Unlimited Email History via Search and the All Mail page requires a subscription to the “Standard”plan, which is $9 per person per month. The free version has no ads, the privacy policy says “does not sell personal data”.

There are also numerous quality-of-life improvements, such as snooze and “pin”buttons (again copied straight from your inbox), unsend, and a “do not disturb”setting for notifications. There is an iOS app and a desktop PWA, but the only thing you can count on right now is the Android app. It exists, but only as a “work in progress”, “beta”application, which at the moment seems to be mostly refactored web page code. The iOS app looks great and native, but there is no Android app yet. This is useful if you just want to get notifications, flick through stacks of emails, and read a few things. But the Android version would look much better as a native app.

I’m amazed that the startup mindset requires that even if you’re a bunch of ex-Google employees cloning a dead Google product, you still can’t prioritize Google’s phone app. Life is hard for Android users.

Email: the future of messaging

I’m surprised that a company with this business model doesn’t currently have their own email hosting service and use the Gmail service. But I’m sure corporate email is in the plans somewhere. At the very least, the service is very easy to try out and you can relive the glory days of Google Inbox. If you like Shortwave then maybe you should stay.

Listing image by Shortwave