Mailbox: You need this new iOS email app

​There's a new app on my first homescreen, the holiest and most exclusive of homescreens, and it's called Mailbox. In fact, it replaced Sparrow, my until-last-week favorite iOS email client. Why do you want this thing? Check out all the details here, but before that, listen up.

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​It's Super Fast

You may not have noticed that it takes a significant amount of time to check your email with the built in mail app, the Gmail app, or others, but it actually does. This delay is caused by setting up an IMAP connection every time you check your mail - Mailbox gets around this completely AND sends less data than the other clients do, making for a super snappy experience.​

​Swipe right to archive, further to delete

​It's Allll Gesture Based

No more checking boxes and clicking buttons to do your most frequent tasks, archiving and deleting. It's all about the swipe - Swipe right to archive, swipe right a little longer and it deletes. ​

​You Can 'Snooze' Emails For Later

And they magically appear back in your inbox after however long you told them to snooze for. Swipe left on an email for this. I've found this feature to be super helpful, even though I didn't think it would be such a big deal when I first started. Give it a shot.​

It's Freaking Beautiful

I can't stand crowded user interfaces and crummy graphics. This app is is both minimalist and gorgeous. The threaded messaging is done beautifuly and everything is very intuitive.

It's Free

They're not charging for use of this service (pro, paid features to come later), which is incredible considering all the heavy lifting they do on their servers.​

​Good timing with the screen grab, eh?

What's the catch?

Well, there's two.

First, you have to be comfortable with a startup having full access to your email. In order for them to speed up your connection, send you push notifications, and parse out just the parts of the email you want, they need full access to your Gmail and process everything on their servers. They allegedly are trustworthy, and have a ton of visibility in the tech community, so any security breach will be a big deal. ​I think the benefits are worth the risks here.

Second,​ you'll have to wait a while. These guys were smart about scaling here, and have implemented a queue. Basically you have to stand in line as new users are added one every few seconds. 

Again, for lots of detail, check out The Verge's great piece on this, and hurry up and get in line for it by installing the app. You can thank me later.​