Google terminates Google Inbox

Google Inbox is retiring. Google Gmail CEO Matthew Izatt revealed today that the company will withdraw the Google Inbox in 2019.

Google launched Inbox in 2014 as an alternative to the popular Gmail service. At the time, many speculated that Google would move all Gmail users to the Google Inbox.

Inbox is an experimental application that could be easily accessed by all Gmail users as it uses the same account and data sources as Gmail.

The Google Inbox launched as a service in 2014 for invitations only. Later, one of the main ideas behind Inbox was that it was designed to make it easier for users to categorize emails into user-defined categories and links (similar to Gmail filters).

At the beginning of its four-year history, the service was exclusive to Google Chrome, did not display multiple emails on the screen at the same time, even if you were working with a desktop, hid all tags by default, and did not enable notifications.

In 2015, Google introduced a new feature in Inbox, which anticipate your answers, analyzing email messages. In other words, try to speed up the replies to an email, indicating short replies that you could already type manually in a few seconds.

Things went smoothly since Google did not pay much attention to the Inbox. The company this year brought a new look and feel to Gmail this year, introducing many Inbox features to it.

And so the moment of deconstruction came as Google revealed that it will close the Google Inbox in March 2019. Users using the Inbox are invited to go to Gmail. The company also published one support page, which says it will help users make this transition easier.

The page suggests to former Inbox users alternative techniques to get used to the Gmail environment. Suggests either the use of stars or custom labels. For bundles, Google suggests using filters and tags, and for reminders, Google Task or Google Keep.

The good news is that Inbox users are not going to lose their data when switching to Gmail since as we said before both services use the same data. The bad news is that some features are not available in Gmail and that Inbox users may need to either use the suggested alternatives, e.g. tags or filters, or stop using certain features because they are not available.