What if you could have help? There is an application out there that will go through your inbox and sort out known email marketing lists and social media emails. OtherInbox helps solve this dilemma.
What OtherInbox does
When you first grant OtherInbox access to your Gmail inbox, it analyzes all of the senders. Many of them are “known” by the system and can be categorized. Social sites, credit cards, entertainment sites like Hulu and Boxee are just a few it filters.
Getting started
To get started, go to OIB.com. You will see a spot to choose Gmail (and Google apps), Yahoo or Other. Other isn’t available, they will notify you when other services are available. I had great success with both Gmail and Google Apps. I couldn’t get Yahoo to work. Once you sign into and grant access to your Gmail account, OtherInbox will start to scan your inbox. If you have a lot of emails saved, this process can take a while. The good thing is, you don’t need to be logged in to either your email or OtherInbox for it to do its thing.
Senders
As OtherInbox sifts through the mess you have left in your inbox, it will look at all of the senders. If one of the senders is not in the known database, you can add it. All you need to do to add a new sender to be filtered is add it to the OIB label. From that point forward, the new sender will be filtered into the appropriate category.
Social sharing
In the settings, you can input your Twitter and Facebook login credentials. Doing this will let you post your purchases to your social network.
Shipment tracking
This is a feature I have not seen too much of. OtherInbox will add your package shipping dates to your Google calendar. You simply import the calendar file to your Google calendar and it will be updated when new emails arrive with a delivery date.
OIB.me
This is a neat feature. OIB.me is a review site for mailing lists. If you are thinking of joining a mailing list, you can see what others think of it. Do they send too many emails, are there lots of coupons, etc.
Conclusion
As you can see, OtherInbox is a bit more than an inbox manager. It simplifies things. Not only can it save time, you will also feel less out of control when you look at your email. During the time I was setting up OtherInbox, I tried the Help link and searched around other parts of the site. There was a bit of a struggle to get information in the help section. Everything seemed to point to the OIB.me page. While helpful, it didn’t answer basic how to use OtherInbox questions. What would your ideal email organizer do for you and what would you want to still do yourself?
