My inbox insanity is crippling at times, so it is out of desperation that I write this post. I have tried to manage my inbox, filed email bankruptcy, scoffed at inbox zero zelots, ignored it, grieved, and finally just let it pile up. I have uncovered many coping mechanisms, but I’ve never found a good solution to actually manage my inbox. Enter Boxer.
This iOS app has helped me stay on top of email when I’m not in front of the computer,  organize my inbox (and other files), but most importantly it has organized workflow unlike any mail client that I’ve ever used. I was searching for a program that handled Exchange better than Apple’s Mail, and I  installed 3 applications that were simply other Mail clients. Then I came across Boxer.
Actions
By far the most attractive feature of the app, is the quick handling of each email in a popup called Actions. With one tap, you access all of the possible actions for the email. Specifically, the top band in the grid below, allows you to read the message and respond quickly with a Like (which notifies the sender that you’ve read the email), create a To-do, or access a prebuilt, but modifiable, list of “Quick” responses.
Quick response is by far one of my favorite features. You can adapt the quick messages to your typical style, and you can pile through the inbox in record time.
Gestures
All the Actions are available as Gestures. With four available Gestures short and long, left and right swipes are customizable to any of the Actions. I’ve assigned the long left swipe to prompt the Quick Response, and it makes general response quick.
Integration with Cloud Apps
It is feature-rich, which typically doesn’t make for a great mail app. These features, however, integrate with the services that I use on a regular basis, so it is an incredibly fast way to move emails and attachments to the right ancillary apps. It’s integration includes:
- box
- Dropbox
- Evernote
- Salesforce
- Sanebox
Sanebox
I’ve never used a filtering app before, but since Sanebox is one of the integrated applications, I signed up for the trial. So far, I like the simplicity of training the rules, which is simply moving emails from the @sanebox folder to the inbox. (affiliate link)
Cons
There’s always room for improvement. I would like to see a few enhancements:
- The ToDos should integrate with iOS’s native Reminders.
- While Boxer is available on all iOS devices, you have to manually setup each device. It would be nice to import the settings from the cloud.
- It would be nice if the Quick reply had an auto learning feature.
- Because emails are distributed to Archive and @sanebox folders, Search across folders seems like a must.
What do you think? What’s your favorite email app.
With the exception of the affiliate link to Sanebox, this is not a paid endorsement of Boxer.Â
