Sortd for Gmail — Trello for Gmail - Transform your email into organized lists

@andreasklinger @corleyh I am a fan of Andreas's email workflow. We have tried to keep Sortd really flexible so people can tailor it to the way they work with email. You can easily rename and re-order the default lists for example, and even add more if you need. Sortd is really good at a few things that Gmail isn't, so you might find it quite easy to use Andreas's methodology with Sortd. Features like drag and drop prioritizing on any of your lists, and the ability to rename the subject of an email to something more relevant will probably come in handy. Also, I find that merging related email threads and adding ToDos alongside my emails tends to bring my priorities into the mix - so I find myself doing more of the things I want to and less Inbox maintenance. Would love to hear how it works out for you though?

@waynesilby I'll definitely keep you posted.

@waynesilby When you change the subject of an email, how does that work, exactly? I can see how to do it -- but since that's not a native feature of Gmail, is that only happening within Sortd? If I were to view my emails outside of Sortd (like via mobile), are the original subject lines intact?

@brandhull We store the new subject on our side with a reference to the original mail. You are right, the original subject remains intact when you view view emails outside of Sortd. We've just released a mobile app - it's still got a way to go before you can use it as a replacement email experience on your mobile, but it allows you to manage all of your Sortd data (which obviously includes renamed subjects)...

@corleyh I've tried @andreasklinger's approach to email and love it! BUT I kinda wanted the Priority Inbox sorting features too. So with Sortd you get the best of both worlds and I'm such a fan!

@rrhoover There are of course exceptions like Mailbox and Acompli who have done ok ;-) But the fact that so many have tried and failed is testament to the fact that email is in dire need of fixing and, right up there with world peace, we have hopes for a world with better email! If you are like me, you live in your Inbox all day, but using it to stay on top of stuff is pure chaos. The Inbox was never meant to be a ToDo list, but that’s how I use it (I even email myself to get stuff into my Inbox, all the time). My team felt the same way - so this all started when we decided we would just solve our own email problems :-) Our first thought was ‘surely by now someone has fixed email’. After a lot of research it just seemed that no one had really nailed it (@paulg also makes mention of this in his talk on the biggest startup ideas - http://youtu.be/R9ITLdmfdLI?t=7m34s). The big fish in the space weren’t innovating enough (I guess that’s something that happens with big fish). And while there were some interesting new email apps out there, most of them required you to abandon the email app you already use (the one with all your data, where you know how to find everything). It’s painful moving to a new app for something like email when you rely on it so heavily. We figured that we could build a really simple and effective solution by complementing the email application people use already. Gmail was a perfect fit because we could extend it in the browser and there are loads of people who use it for work email (which is where Sortd really shines). So in short – email seems to have some inherent problems, and while other companies have tried to reinvent it, we think we have cracked a really simple and practical way to manage it with an organization-first approach. Sortd also leverages a lot of the underlying stuff that Gmail does well, so rather than reinventing the wheel we were able to focus solely on the part that we feel is missing from email - a really visual and intuitive way to organize it in the context of your tasks & priorities. Plus you only live once and we were looking for a big hairy challenge to keep things exciting :-) On a serious note, we wanted to work on something relevant to ourselves and millions of other people – fixing email is it!

@rrhoover @paulg @waynesilby Email is one of those dragons I'd love to challenge, but just wouldn't know where to start. I like gmail, yet hate their basic format. I end up using Active Inbox and Streak to create better workflow within gmail, and you'd think several of those tools would be in basic gmail. The primary window most everyone stares at all day is email. But I don't just need email. I need my tasks, projects and calendar. So I use different apps/websites for each and hack them all together one way or the other. And I think we've all sent ourselves an email as a task (which I hate). I think the foundations of email needs an overhaul in a way that will let people use it in new ways outside of the current sets of hacks. I just don't know what that would look like, but I know what I wish it would do. My wife really likes Sortd. She had some issues here and there, but overall find it makes her gmail experience better (and she hates gmail). Her one suggestion is she'd like the emails in sorted to be unread then read which it doesn't currently do. So she moves from gmail view to sortd as she needs.

@rrhoover @paulg @golocalapps You are right that the foundation of email needs an overhaul. The problem is that everybody uses email - it's a standard - it's a way to reach someone based on an addressing scheme. The likes of Slack are creating alternate ways to communicate that are better in many ways for team communication, but email is still going to be around for a long long time (mainly because people expect to be able to contact other people that way). What's interesting is that email should really just be a way to communicate, but often work is generated based on email conversations. It's generated from other forms of communication too (like Slack, Skype and even Whatsapp these days), but the pain point is in dealing with all the work that comes from the conversations you have every day (especially when you also have to invest time triaging and 'cleaning up' so you don't miss anything). What we've tried to do with Sortd is add to the foundation by introducing the missing pieces that deal with organization (tasks, the idea of priority etc). So in a way, we've extended the protocol without the need to dig in and change what's already there. We have a long way to go before we've covered all the bases but I think we're headed in the right direction. Re your wife's suggestion to mark items read/unread, I'm not sure what you mean - it works the same way Gmail does, so when you have viewed a message it's marked as read. It synchronises with the underlying Mailbox via Imap though, so you might notice small delays updating to mobile for example.

@rrhoover @paulg @waynesilby My wife may read an email and then mark it as unread so she knows there is a task in it. In Gmail she can sort emails by Unread first, then Read emails. In sortd, if she has a list of emails (from what I understand about how it works) they don't sort by read/unread emails. Unread first, then all the read emails in the list. If you ever want to discuss (via email HA!) further, feel free to contact me.This is a pet peeve of mine that i'd love to see someone fix.

@rrhoover @paulg @golocalapps We are just about to release a new feature to improve on that exact experience, so I'd love to hear your thoughts. And your wife's :) What's your email add? Otherwise pls email me at wayne@sortd.com.

@waynesilby no response?

@mrahmadawais Still no reply?

@golocalapps That's all that matters most of the time!

@jasonhitchcock It's on our product roadmap. I can't make promises re the timing, but it is a priority.

@jasonhitchcock would def pay for this

@smayzes The Sortd Smart Skin is a Chrome Extension. The permission to access your browsing history is there so that we can ensure it only runs in Gmail and not in other tabs (i.e. it just needs to know that you are in Gmail). This is something we are looking to tighten up if we can, Sortd doesn't need to know anything about your actual browsing history to function. Re access to your emails, Sortd only reads email headers from your mailbox so that it can include information like the Sender and Subject when you drag a mail to one of your lists. It doesn't read email content at all - that's still all done in Gmail (we basically get Gmail to open the mails you click on, we don't do that ourselves). Hope that makes sense...

@waynesilby That does make sense. Thank you for taking the time to explain.

@chrismessina Will look into that. It's quite tough making sure it's compatible with all the Gmail extensions out there, because it's not really a managed ecosystem. All of the players in this space are doing some fancy footwork to get these products to work well with Gmail. @olofster @chanpory @bradvogel perhaps it's time for a Gmail Extensions association...

@olofster yeah, I know it's tough since the Gmail FE isn't technically a "platform" for others to hook into (even Gmail Labs seems in disrepair). For now I guess I'll have to cycle through these extensions and see which works best. FWIW, I'd really love it if you integrated with Mailplane, since that's how I prefer to use Gmail.

@chrismessina yeah in part this is what we’re solving for. Mixmax gives platform access to email, so anyone can bring an app into email with Mixmax to improve their productivity. Fwiw, think it works fine actually as long as sortd lives on the side vs. replacing the entire inbox:)

Hey Semira :) Spotted your comment over the weekend! Sortd are a cool product. They are quite a heavy skin that sits on top of Gmail to be able to be used primarily converting tasks to email. I'd welcome you to check out our reviews on Chrome store and also, if you haven't, please try DragApp.com - yesterday we released a large update which dramatically improved speed. That was one of our previous sticking points with customers. Also, please see our public product roadmap which shares everything we are doing: trello.com/b/41FGtlod/drag-public-roadmap This will be the best way to understand our direction. We've recently changed our vision statement to 'Inbox your life'. Any more questions, I'd happily jump on a call. Thanks Nick

Sortd is clearly the one to use! It's far more refined than any of the other product mentioned here and offer more functionality like Sales and CRM features and I see they are launching team collaborations soon too.

@mzuvella Thanks It's not impossible. However Gmail is really good at algorithms, so it's no surprise they went the route they did with bundles on their Inbox product. And I suspect that they will continue to provide smart ways of filtering and getting through the clutter. That's not really what Sortd is about - it's more of an organizer that you can put your emails on. We're developing the mobile app at the moment - hope to have something out by end of Q1 this year. We don't intend to compete with existing mobile email apps for now, but there will be ways to see and manage what's on your Sortd lists. It will also have integration points to be able to add emails to Sortd from whatever mobile app you already use.

@blainehatab Not sure if I can be objective here, but yes :) I love Gmail too, but I think it's a bit lacking on the organization front. Unless you are one of those people who just knows what they have to do in a day and never forgets anything (I wish I was by the way), you need to use a system to keep organized. Sortd just lets you do that inside Gmail so you don't need to keep switching between your email and whatever system you use to manage your priorities. As for alternate email clients - even Gmail came out with one - Inbox :) I guess email is one of those things that gets more out of control with time, and the tools need to adapt to deal with it.

@waynesilby yeah good point about gmail coming out with one. I just always check all my emails and stay on top of it.

@pchun218 Some yes, some partially. You can always minimise Sortd to get back to standard Gmail if you find something isn't working as expected with one of the other addons though. Or you can use Sortd on a different Chrome profile if you want to use them all together.