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Comment by jedberg | Hacker News Reader

The author mentions switching to hey for email. Given all the press it's gotten recently, I decided to check it out.

I don't get the hype. This is how my gmail already works. I use priority inbox. New senders get high priority until I mark them as low priority, and then they don't. Gmail already has a snooze button so I can reply later (and also I have a reply-later tag that's easy to do with keyboard shortcuts).

You can do this search in gmail to replicate their sorted inbox: [is:updates in:inbox -l:important]. I just have a bookmark for that.

Finding attachments is easy. You just do [has:attachment]. I don't want all the attachments without their emails. The email provides context. Also, I can usually find it faster because I usually know who sent it or at least some words that were in the email.

What am I missing about hey.com? Why do people love it so much?

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When you open the Hey inbox, it only has the important stuff in it, not the messages of whoever decided to reach out to you today. It's a subtle difference but I love it.

Then when you have a moment, it's also very satisfying to just go through the screener list in bulk and click thumbs down/up and knowing you'll never see that sender again. Sometimes in GMail, no matter how many times I mark some thing as spam, the mail keeps on coming. Hey is the nuclear option to Gmail's fly swatter.

You can add filters to delete mail from specific senders. I have quite a few that ignore my requests to unsubscribe.

> When you open the Hey inbox, it only has the important stuff in it,

So does my gmail. It only shows things marked important.

> Sometimes in GMail, no matter how many times I mark some thing as spam, the mail keeps on coming

That happens to me occasionally, but I just click on "filter messages like this" and then set it to never mark as important (or straight to spam).

Setting aside the privacy and wanting to distance from Big Tech, the fundamental difference is:

- Gmail is a very versatile tool, you can configure it to suit your needs and replicate most of the features of Hey. But they're basically hacks, like your bookmark of a search.

- Hey is a workflow and experience that the authors believe is the best, and it works in a clean way.

Another thing I like about Hey is how clean, light and fast it is. I don't need hangout, google meet, task and links to every Google product (but the Contacts page could be more accessible that buried between Photos and Drive!)

And I certainly need a friggin splash screen while my webmail takes 10 seconds to load. What were they thinking? Did they forget what made Gmail so good to start with??

Everyone knows google is "better" software. Just like employees are promoted to one level above their potential, companies always push the envelope one step too far when pushing for growth/monetization. Google has been pushing way too much, way too often.

At this point, something that doesn't read my emails, give any bullshit law enforcement request a master key, and doesn't try and abuse the spirit of antitrust laws at every step is worth trying out, even if it's just only workable.

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