Nowadays, a private email address can be compared to one's identity. With the rise of multi-factor authentication and single sign-on, this reference becomes even more potent. Over the twenty-something years of my online presence, I have created a couple of such identities. Some of them were tied to my clients and businesses, others - to my personal brand or private life. I tested various email providers, with Gmail being the most significant one. Until January, I owned two personal and two business email addresses, all hosted on Gmail. Three of them are part of a Google Workspace subscription. Ah, there is also an iCloud email that is my gateway to Apple's ecosystem, but let's ignore it.
I tried HEY last November. I missed rich filters and the tree-like folder structure from Gmail–not that I was a heavy user of it. Maybe people keep organizing their emails to feel they have accomplished something. I did like the screener, though. Still, I pulled back after realizing it can’t automatically distinguish between newsletters and transactional emails from a single address–some companies do this, and it seems like evil practice to me.
After almost two months, I got curious again. What if my prejudices came from years of being tamed by Google to use email in the one right way? You know, the one that allows Google to train its AIs to learn about human behaviors, i.e., how they classify and search information in emails. Even if they don't do it, is their way the most optimal way to manage messages? And what does optimal mean?
I want to be happy like everyone else does. I want to feel less miserable when interacting with an email client. I have tried different things, including disciplining myself with the inbox-zero approach. Still, it was a lost battle for me. I always ended up with thousands of unread messages on every mailbox–notifications, unwanted newsletters, and threads I needed to act upon, somewhere among them.
I gave HEY another shot. Luckily, they have not deleted my account yet.
After over two weeks, I think I get it. HEY does not try to replicate the status quo since email clients from the 90s. It offers ways to deal with incoming messages instead. Thanks to HEY, my options are:
I tried HEY last November. I missed rich filters and the tree-like folder structure from Gmail–not that I was a heavy user of it. Maybe people keep organizing their emails to feel they have accomplished something. I did like the screener, though. Still, I pulled back after realizing it can’t automatically distinguish between newsletters and transactional emails from a single address–some companies do this, and it seems like evil practice to me.
After almost two months, I got curious again. What if my prejudices came from years of being tamed by Google to use email in the one right way? You know, the one that allows Google to train its AIs to learn about human behaviors, i.e., how they classify and search information in emails. Even if they don't do it, is their way the most optimal way to manage messages? And what does optimal mean?
I want to be happy like everyone else does. I want to feel less miserable when interacting with an email client. I have tried different things, including disciplining myself with the inbox-zero approach. Still, it was a lost battle for me. I always ended up with thousands of unread messages on every mailbox–notifications, unwanted newsletters, and threads I needed to act upon, somewhere among them.
I gave HEY another shot. Luckily, they have not deleted my account yet.
After over two weeks, I think I get it. HEY does not try to replicate the status quo since email clients from the 90s. It offers ways to deal with incoming messages instead. Thanks to HEY, my options are:
- do nothing; I've read it, and it just gets out of my way–I can find it if I need it, though
- put it on the Reply Later list
- set it aside - for future reference, but what is even better, I can use clips to set aside fragments of messages
- bubble it up later - it will come back to my inbox at the selected time – this is useful for chasing people
The above features make my inbox a proper TODO list, which empowers me to achieve inbox-zero-zen naturally.
Another excellent feature is email recycling. It is not true that I have to keep everything on record. I will never need that receipt for clothes purchased seven years ago or the messages from a former client. Email recycling will help me get rid of the noise. My only wish is to be able to select more extended retention periods–some stuff needs to be kept for five years in my country, but currently, the possible maximum is two years.
Another excellent feature is email recycling. It is not true that I have to keep everything on record. I will never need that receipt for clothes purchased seven years ago or the messages from a former client. Email recycling will help me get rid of the noise. My only wish is to be able to select more extended retention periods–some stuff needs to be kept for five years in my country, but currently, the possible maximum is two years.
I took a plunge and completely switched my private mailbox to a @hey.com address. I love this decision so far:
- I have a short email address in a nice domain
- I will retire both Gmail private addresses I have used for over 20 years - you can imagine all the spam even Google cannot filter out disappears
- I pay an honest company to keep my address online, so I hope I won't be locked out of my online life without a chance to appeal to a real human being
- I support a bootstrapped business - this aligns with my values - building a profitable business has more immense merit than scaling aggressively.
- HEY hides from me stuff I don't have to see anymore—less noise. Everything else is a click away. The UX is crafted to reduce my cognitive load when dealing with emails. The UI is minimalistic and feels light, too.
Thanks for bringing your calm company culture to email!
I wrote this to document my decision for my future self. This post is just incidentally praising HEY. They have not paid me for it.