Show HN: Chrome Extension and Spreadsheet that replaced our $10k/y support desk
tatomo.com
It’s been running internally for ~2 weeks and has held up well enough that we’re considering replacing our existing $10k/year SaaS vendor.
Why I built it
Gmail and Google Workspace have had the primitives for a proper shared inbox for years - labels, filters, threads, roles, Groups, Drive, and robust APIs.
But the delegated mailbox/shared inbox capability has remained largely untouched and, in practice, isn’t particularly useful for teams. It solves only a small fraction of the actual collaboration problem.
That gap led me to build something lightweight on top of Gmail itself.
Our support workflow didn’t require the full weight of a dedicated support desk platform. We needed a shared inbox, internal notes, assignment, and basic ticket metadata.
The goal wasn’t to rebuild Zendesk. It was to build the minimum useful set of features inside Workspace, without forwarding emails or sending customer data through more vendors.
How it works
Chrome extension - sidebar - displays current thread info if any
Auth uses chrome.identity → Google OAuth
Sheet (Drive-owned) stores ticket metadata, shared with the team
Attachments saved to a Drive folder
Labels control assignment + status (Pending/Closed)
Footer with internal ticket ID (searchable via Gmail)
“People in thread” resolver + quick history lookup
Everything happens client-side. There is no backend.
Why a spreadsheet?
For an MVP, it worked surprisingly well:
version history
no schema migrations
trivial rollback
owned by the Workspace admin
If this ever evolves, I’d use a proper database, but for now the Sheet keeps everything simple and contained.
A fun exploration of what you can assemble quickly within Google Workspace.