
Simplify Gmail: Bringing the Simplicity of Google Inbox to Gmail - gmcabrita
https://simpl.fyi/gmail/
======
lervag
I notice a lot of people comment on what they miss from Inbox, and I am very
surprised to see that no one has mentioned the reminders. For me, this was the
killer feature and the one feature I will miss from Inbox. Being able to
combine my email and reminders in the same convenient interface was simply
fantastic.

I've now settled on ticktick for handling my reminders, after testing the
Google tasks stuff, Todoist, Any.do, and more. It works well, but does not
feel nowhere near as smooth as Inbox.

~~~
patrickaljord
You can do reminders in gmail too, just click on the clock icon. You can also
schedule send your email now which is pretty cool
[https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-uniblog-publish-
prod/ori...](https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-uniblog-publish-
prod/original_images/SHEDULE_SEND_MOBILE.gif)

~~~
Vinnl
I think you're conflating snoozing with reminders. Snoozing allows you to hide
emails until a later moment in time, whereas reminders allows you to add
arbitrary items to your inbox (e.g. "Visit dentist") which you can then also
snooze until the appropriate moment. The experience might be replicated by
sending an email to yourself and snoozing _that_ , but that involves far more
friction.

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pen2l
The two main things I miss from Inbox:

\- The "Trips" feature... so easily you could see your flight details, your
hotel details... vs. having to search your email box and having to go through
emails upon emails

\- The image previews! I do some artwork for my job, and it was SUCH a boon to
see the images right there. You could actually click one of them, and preview
all the images from an email conversation in a carousel fashion

Any ideas how I may be able to get this in Gmail somehow?

~~~
nolok
> \- The "Trips" feature... so easily you could see your flight details, your
> hotel details... vs. having to search your email box and having to go
> through emails upon emails

I'm not sure if they extracted it to a dedicated app or if the app was already
there and Inbox integrated it, but Google Trips is exactly that.

~~~
robben1234
The difference though, Trips app doesn't really allow to manually handle
linked stuff. In Inbox you could have moved an email with a PNR from one trip
bundle to another and it automatically changed those bundles, as well as
bundles in Trips app.

------
eBombzor
The biggest feature for me was bundles (which unfortunately this extension
does not have). I could create a bundle for a subscription service or a
listerv or just school updates from certain people and it wouldn't clutter my
inbox (had around 20 entries all the time even during the busiest seasons).
Was incredibly good for sites like Monster when I was looking for jobs. It
wouldn't clutter my inbox but when I wanted to apply I could just go through
the bundles. Genius design really. Wish it came to Gmail now that Inbox is
dead.

~~~
sfRattan
I never used Inbox as I never had a problem with Gmail, but how were 'bundles'
different from creating labels and logical filters that skip certain
categories of message past the inbox? Was it just that 'bundles' were more
intuitive and obvious to set up, or was there something that made them more
than a label plus one or more filters?

~~~
lostmsu
Never saw the feature, but from the description they simply looks like labels,
but displayed inline with unlabeled email. E.g. imagine all emails from your
utility company as a single long thread.

~~~
Klathmon
And the ability to take a one-click action on all of them in the bundle.

There were so many times that I'd snooze an entire bundle of emails about a
trip until the monday before the trip, or snooze the 20 emails sent out from a
work monitoring system that I need to look into later in the day, or archive
an entire bundle of promo emails after glancing in them at the subject lines.

In gmail I hate the tabs because once I look at them they stop being shown as
a count in that tab, and I need to select them all and archive them in
multiple steps. And if you don't like the tabs, the only other way to organize
is by foregoing grouping all together and throwing everything into one messy
list.

------
ukulele
As dumb as it sounds, the biggest thing I've missed is seeing the sender's
image in the main view, where the checkboxes are in gmail.

It was so, so, so much easier to instantly tell who sent the message with an
image there. Even the gmail app has this feature, so I really don't know why
it's not in the gmail web UI.

Is there any way to add these back with a plugin like this?

~~~
leggett
This is one thing we might be able to bring back. It will be a stretch but
there is a chance as opposed to bundles or deeper reminders integration.

~~~
mgalgs
Do you work on Gmail? Are you saying bundles have little chance of making into
Gmail? That might cement my decision to finally drop Gmail... :(

~~~
mgalgs
Ah sorry just noticed that you're the extension author. Never mind. Definitely
going to check the extension out because I'm really hating Gmail right now.
Inbox really spoiled us :(

------
m-p-3
The simplicity is just one of the strengths that made Inbox a superior
product.

* Bundles: Made it easy to see all categories of emails from the inbox. Gmail offers categories, but you have to switch between them see each ones.

* Task-oriented: The concept of marking an email as Done was genius, and really helped to achieve zero-inbox. At least Archive kinda serve that purpose. You could also mark an entire bundle as Done from a single click if you wanted.

* Snooze: Inbox at one point offered time-based and location-based snoozes. Location-based snoozes were great for people travelling between offices without a well-defined schedule. It allowed me to bring back location-specific tasks once I got there, before they canned it. I also noticed it would even sometimes pick up relevant dates and times mentioned in an email and offer you to snooze up until that time without having to manually do it or choose a preconfigured time. Sadly Gmail only does time-based snoozes, and without the custom time feature.

* Chronological divisions: The emails were separated by days, so all emails that came today were grouped together, yesterday's the same, and so on. It was easy to see what was from today.

* Trips: Having the AI automagically sort and bundle relevant incoming trips together made it easy to find your hotel reservation, plane tickets, etc, and it would even show up a dynamic card with your flight number, departure time, delays, etc. All the useful info was right there.

Inbox was Gmail 2.0 and it was great. Too bad Google decided to regress.

------
jaimehrubiks
Am I the only one that would miss every single thing this extension hides?
Actually I don't use the right side bar, but I like to organize my email in
labels and auto filter emails into them and clearly see how many I have.

I do like gmail as it is now. Actually, I also like the html version
[https://mail.google.com/mail/ca/u/0/h/](https://mail.google.com/mail/ca/u/0/h/)
but because it has all the features of the normal gmail but it loads faster.

~~~
bbx
Completely agree. I’m a very big user of labels. I have more than a hundred,
and have set up about 50 automatic filters to apply these labels, so much that
99% of the emails I receive have at least one label applied to them
automatically.

This extension is geared towards Inbox users who want some less UI overload
but without all the automatic features. Seems more like a coat of paint than a
plugin.

------
kossae
> I was Gmail's lead designer from 2008 to 2012 and co-founded Google Inbox.

Quite the perfect person for the job!

------
gedy
Bless you, Inbox started redirecting to Gmail this week, and I cannot stand
the new Gmail look. Features aside, Inbox was a pleasure to read and look at.

~~~
saagarjha
Interestingly, it doesn't do this for me yet.

~~~
mmsimanga
Not sure if I switch to Gmail or if I was redirected but I have been using
Gmail for the last few days. I tried Inbox URL and it works. I think I will
stick with Inbox until it is switch off.

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floathub
I am genuinely impressed that you were gmail’s lead designer for _years_.

In the abstract, I understand how adoption and usability can turn on subtle
and clever design decisions. The sum total of all these little things can
definitely lead to a hockey stick uptake.

But I’m still lost on the OP “before” and “after” shots. Looks like the same
info to me, just rearranged with different whitespace. Am I totally missing
something fundamental?

~~~
asynchronous13
They are not before and after shots. These are both "after" shots, the first
one of the inbox view and the second one of an email view. Click on the image
to see the default gmail view for comparison.

~~~
pvinis
I guess GP meant those before and after screenshots. I agree with them in that
I also don't what the difference is. I also never used Inbox for more than 10
min. It's the same, just a bit "prettier" with the definition of "pretty"
being "bigger and with more whitespace", which I don't necessarily agree with,
at least for email.

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dalore
This misses the whole point of inbox which is strange since this is from the
guy who claims to have made inbox.

This feels just like a skin for gmail. And it's gone backwards. My view now is
narrow with big bars on either side so I see less of the content. I can't mark
an email as done.

Opening an email I don't have the archive button anymore. I got reply and
forward. Where is archive/mark done feature that is for inbox?

I loved how inbox collected stuff into lists and let me mark done the whole
list. Subscribe to a github project? Get all those emails as one list in inbox
automatically. Where/how to do that feature in gmail?

I don't understand why ditch inbox, it's lot's better than gmail.

~~~
leggett
I didn't miss the point... I came up with a lot of those features and still
strongly believe in them. But I can only change so much from outside Google
and with an extension. Glad you found archive, it is the same as done in
everything but name.

I can't add back bundles or deeper reminders integration. I totally agree that
this extension doesn't give you back Inbox. But it makes it a little easier to
bare for those that cherished the simple interface along with the wonderful
features. We can only hope that Google adds them to Gmail.

~~~
dalore
Can't you add back in bundles by having the skin show (or let us save
searches) like "bundle:social in:inbox".

So I can have a link that's like a bundle, and can archive all my social media
emails in one go.

------
apk-d
Still using Inbox. Will keep doing so until the servers actually go down.
Somehow, it feels intimately sad to have to let go. But when the time comes,
Firefox extension please!

~~~
djaychela
Yeah, I saw this and got my hopes up, but I've stopped using chrome and won't
go back for this, so I'll have to lump it!

------
jakecopp
My dream is a command line email client with Google Inbox's todo list
mentality, with Vim keybindings which I can keep in a Mosh session.

Is there anything at all like this? I'm still getting the hang of Mutt and
setting it up properly, it feels a long way off.

------
rcthompson
One thing I really miss from Inbox is the ability to archive the currently
highlighted message with the archive shortcut without having to select it
first. Does anyone know a way to get this in gmail?

~~~
Infernal
I'm not sure what you mean by your use of "survive" here - are you referring
to the feature where you could pin certain emails and then "sweep" the rest
into archive with one click?

~~~
rcthompson
Whoops, that was meant to be "archive" but my phone autocorrected it. I've
edited it.

~~~
Infernal
Ok cool. So the best way to do this is that I have found is to use the
vertical spit view (selected using the icon to the left of the settings gear
icon, in the upper right of the gmail window).

This allows you to use the keyboard ('j'/'k') to navigate through the list of
emails, and just hit 'e' on the ones you want to archive. Downside is, the
content of the email still loads in the preview pane.

If you don't want emails to automatically be marked as "read" when you select
them, you can go to the settings gear, "Inbox" tab, and change the length of
time a message is displayed in the preview pane before being marked read to
"never".

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sahaskatta
This looks amazing. Please add support for a dark mode!

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hmexx
It is now April 3rd and Inbox is still working for me, both on iOS and Web. Is
it too early to hope they may have changed their mind?

~~~
djaychela
Won't happen, alas! I was thinking the same and will keep using it until it
stops working...

~~~
djaychela
.... and it's gone. Forwards to gmail now.

------
lucideer
Wanted to try this in Firefox, but the code is simple and easy to read enough
that it was actually easier to convert it into a Grease/Tamper/Violentmonkey
script than to package as a new addon.

[https://hastebin.com/elonabobew.js](https://hastebin.com/elonabobew.js)

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londons_explore
The CSS in this extension uses googles minified/compiled class names.

Those will change every ~week as Google releases a new frontend version.
Presumably the lead designer knows that.

How does he intend to keep this extension working?

~~~
leggett
Some classnames don't change often and some do. I'm updating the extension as
they change and trying to use more stable css selectors (like div[aria-
label="search"]) though those only work in english.

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djanogo
You can also remove the top tabs (Social, Promotions, Updates) which are
mostly advertising and have "get back to our website" emails.

Lot of forums have moved to Facebook now, so that tab is also sort of
obsolete.

~~~
leggett
Better to change your inbox type under Settings > Inbox > Inbox Type than
remove the tabs with an extension.

------
robrichard
Is there any email client that supports bundles like Inbox did?

~~~
shereadsthenews
The magic isn’t in the client it’s in the delivery pipeline. If nothing is
classifying the message into a bundle on the backend, what is the frontend
going to do? Of course you can replicate all this yourself but it’s going to
be a lot of software to write.

~~~
robrichard
What I miss most is not the auto-bundling, but writing rules to tag emails
with a label and the viewing (and archiving) everything that matched as a
bundle.

Seems like all the backend that’s needed is built into gmail, what’s needed on
the client is knowing which labels to display as a bundle.

~~~
wwwigham
No, no - I definitely miss the autobundling. The auto bundling of github
emails by repo is possible the only thing that's been keeping me sane, since I
get a _lot_ of notification traffic, much of which I should read about, at
least... I can't really setup rules for that - I could setup rules for repos I
already participate on (ungh, that's a lot), but every random new repo would
be another tag and another rule. Eck.

Inbox made that management drop dead simple. I lament it's loss.

------
joe-collins
I'm not sure how much you can or would push to restore functionality via this
added layer, but even this is a great boon.

For both this, and your recently deceased, thank you.

------
milo_im
Does anyone use this Gmail GTD setup with `Multiple inboxes`?

[http://klinger.io/post/71640845938/dont-drown-in-email-
how-t...](http://klinger.io/post/71640845938/dont-drown-in-email-how-to-use-
gmail-more)

~~~
rak00n
I do. It's like a poor man's implementation for bundles, where you can archive
things by removing the label.

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halgir
I've used this plugin for all of five minutes now, but I'm loving it so far.
The search and compose buttons are a little bit out of the way compared to
default. But that turns out to be a positive for me, as it got me to finally
look up the keyboard shortcuts!

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O_H_E
Oh, yes. I was searching for something like this last week. Thank you OP

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curiousgal
What we need is a CSS extension for Gmail's simplified version.

~~~
Scrantonicity
and basic javascript upgrades like the ability to select multiple emails at
the same time, keyboard shortcuts to delete emails/reply etc.

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simonsaidit
I just needed a way to mark a bunch of gruped emails as read on mobile app.
Does Gmail allow this.

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fermentation
One of the hidden features of this extension is that it gives you a better
view of the zoozimps theme.

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purephase
This is great, thanks for sharing.

