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by mcjiggerlog 2827 days ago
Does Fastmail provide any kind of "bundling" or "priority inbox" features?

Since using Inbox on Android, I can't imagine going back to being notified about every single email. Automatic bundling of messages and the custom rules that you can then set on those bundles is a killer feature. If nobody comes along with a decent alternative before Inbox is shutdown then I don't know what I'll do!

5 comments

I don't know if fast mail provides it out of the box but I have started to test out spark: https://sparkmailapp.com/ as a replacement for Inbox. While it is a bit from as good as Inbox it can get the job done, and has bundling.

I simply set it up to archive when swiping (which is what Inbox seems to be doing). However, it's notifications are far from as good and you can't archive straight from the notification, which, to me, is a let down.

Furthermore, on iPhone 8 there is an actual loading screen when opening the app. Like, why? Everything is already stored in the phone and it should just look for new mail in the background?

So far from perfect, but what can one do when Google is killing stuff off.

One issue though: you have to be in the apple ecosystem as they do not support, anything but iOS/Mac OS.

Note: I'm not associated with spark in any way.

FYI: They store your credentials on their servers. Its not like outlook/thunderbird where you credentials are stored locally.
Thanks for letting me know! Did not know that.

That is quite scary to be honest and do you know the reason as to why they do this?

I believe that's only if you enable and use Send Later (because they need to be able to send an email in your name, even if your device is offline).
Looks pretty promising but it's not available on either Linux (I can't believe an email client has no web app!) or Android...
This would be my complaint having had a quick look at Fastmail. Their mail client provides only the most basic of email functionality - folders, filters, contacts etc. It seems like you're paying a monthly subscription for privacy when you may as well host your own if you don't need any features beyond what IMAP offers as standard.
I've been using https://www.sanebox.com which does a pretty good job of the bundling, leaving you with just the important stuff in your inbox. It's not as well integrated as Inbox could be, but I find it very usable, and even better in some ways as the 'bundles' don't end up back in your inbox, they are always in other folders by default.
I use Aquamail and it's smart folder features merges inboxes pretty decently.
I manually set up a bunch of rules that move inessential mail to a folder called "Bacn".

My rules list is about three screens tall now.