
Monolist: working hard to preserve the spirit of Inbox's organizational features - jakemmarsh
https://monolist.co/blog/news/new-inbox/
======
kcon
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 with a single service, not Gmail plus another service.

~~~
akshaynathan
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 with it and the
data gets stale. Monolist will keep it in sync, and let you
approve/merge/comment on it inline so you don't have to switch between 10
apps.

~~~
ybkshaw
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!

~~~
akshaynathan
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.

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alcwng3
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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nambit
Just a heads up, their planned free version limits you to 500 items per month:
[https://monolist.co/pricing](https://monolist.co/pricing)

I absolutely despise this kind of 'free' offering since it's more of a demo
than an actual offer. Split it by user count, split it by features but the
whole purpose of this thing is rendered moot by that limit.

~~~
jakemmarsh
Oops, that pricing page was actually left up erroneously (thus why it's not
linked anywhere). That was a previous pricing model that is no longer active.
Monolist is currently entirely free while we're in this open beta and
development phase.

We actually abandoned that model because we agree with you. Limiting the
number of items per month would be going against the use case of the product.

~~~
mgalgs
How will you be monetizing it?

~~~
jakemmarsh
We think a lot of the same problems that Monolist is solving for the
individual also exist for cross-functional teams. The plan is to eventually
offer paid enterprise and team-based features.

~~~
nambit
Thanks for that. I'll be giving it a try

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buster
What.. I've totally missed this. Inbox will be shut down? What the....

I am a happy user of inbox since its first days and now.. Again.. Google shuts
down the next service.. Another point not to invest (time, in this case) into
Google products, sadly. :(

~~~
sigzero
Yep, the major features of Inbox will be rolled into gmail at some point.

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djaychela
My main use for inbox is snooze - it's allowed me to manage and prioritise
emails brilliantly over the last couple of years. I also far prefer the clean
interface to Gmail.

As a result of the demise of inbox, I'm looking for a replacement, but it will
need a native android app for me, alas, so I guess I'll be stuck with Gmail
after March 2019...

~~~
PieSquared
The new Gmail interface has snooze, so if that's the only thing you're missing
it'll stick around. I mostly miss the "Trips" feature, having recently
switched from Inbox to new Gmail...

~~~
retzkek
The automatic bundling in Inbox - trips, purchases, finance, etc - is a killer
feature for me. I tried going back to gmail and immediately missed it. I'll
keep using Inbox until they take it out back, just like Reader.

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1123581321
Can this misleading title be corrected? This isn’t (and can’t be) an Inbox
replacement. It seems to have been written this way to self-promote.

~~~
dang
Ok, we replaced the title with a more modest phrase from the article body.

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kingbirdy
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.

~~~
akshaynathan
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.

~~~
thoraces
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!

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

~~~
flipsticks
It's a real encouragement for those of who are looking for a replacement.
While your current feature-set isn't everything we're after, I'm keen to see
how you flesh it out!

I'll be keeping an eye on this tool, thanks for being responsive to all of our
comments!

------
octref
Now when I see any new product I look for a pledge to not get acquired like
PostHaven[0]. Otherwise I simply refuse to use it. Sparrow, Mailbox,
Inbox...Have been burnt too many times.

[0]: [https://posthaven.com](https://posthaven.com)

------
bazeblackwood
Would love to see an Outlook/Outlook Calendar integration. Any plans for that?

~~~
jakemmarsh
Not in the immediate future, but we've discussed it and it's definitely on our
longer-term roadmap. Requests like yours also help us better prioritize that,
so thanks!

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dev_parrott
For me, the place where inbox mattered was as an email client, not a task
manager. I like the task manager metaphor for an email client, and they way
that it made me think about my email, but I never wanted to apply that to my
other workflows. I just liked the inbox email client.

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thoraces
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.

~~~
akshaynathan
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.

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

~~~
jakemmarsh
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.

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therealmarv
Gmail itself will be the Google Inbox replacement. They will integrate some
missing Inbox features. Instead of panicking I would use inbox till the end
and give Google some time... hopefully they will integrate the bundles in
Gmail before shutting Inbox down.

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kdom13
Snoozing and bundling are they key features that I love with Inbox.

------
jakemmarsh
Looks like the logged-in application is experiencing the "HN hug of death".
The blog should still be fully accessible, but we'll have everything else back
up soon!

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geoah
Requiring full google drive access without explaining why or giving an option
to opt out is a no go for me.

Idea seems interesting but I can't see why they would require access to my
files.

~~~
jakemmarsh
We require full Google Drive access for a few reasons:

\- Creating action items when you're tagged on any file \- Creating action
items when any comments are left on your files \- Allowing you to search your
entire Drive from Monolist

We never store the contents of your actual files. Those are just the
permissions necessary to keep you up to date on any Drive action items.

~~~
Ajedi32
Any way you can make that permission optional? I suspect there are a lot of
people who may not know or care about Drive integration and as a result may
not want to grant full Drive access.

~~~
jakemmarsh
That's definitely possible, and an option we've considered but haven't yet
been able to implement. We'll be sure to add it to our list. Thanks for the
feedback!

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owaislone
Any Inbox replacement will need to work completely offline. By that I mean it
would have to speak to Gmail directly instead of routing my mail through some
3rd party servers.

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vvilliam0
Show me the finished product. Stop promising to self-promote.

~~~
jakemmarsh
I don't think we'll ever be "finished". All the features that are listed in
the blog post other than email (coming later this week), are already
implemented, and you can check them out!

I know that email is the biggest one considering we're trying to replace
Inbox, but I think creating a richer experience around transactional emails
you receive from all your apps is already leaps and bounds better than Gmail
for that use case.

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AJRF
Bit of an aside here so sorry, but did any successful clones of Google Reader
live longer than a week?

If so could someone point me towards it?

~~~
nuclear_eclipse
I use Feedbin with a number of apps that use it for synchronization, and it's
run as a paid-for service by a reliable dev.
[https://feedbin.com](https://feedbin.com)

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mbrumlow
I just switched to hosting my own server and using mu4e in emcas.

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trevoristall
Needs Jira to be useful for me, very cool idea though!

~~~
jakemmarsh
We actually do have full Jira Cloud (and Confluence) support! Those just went
live in the last week.

