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Google unveils sleek new email assistant

Google introduces 'Inbox', a new email app. It's part email organizer, part personal assistant, and is sure to make emailing a lot easier.

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Google debuts Inbox an app that helps users organize their emails.
  • By Bryan Cronan Staff Writer

If you're like me, finding anything in your email account is a pain. Important messages get lost amongst the hordes of junk mail, and organizing emails is a chore. Well Google's new email app is going to make emailing a whole lot easier. 

On Wednesday, Google launched Inbox, a new email app that's part organizer, part personal assistant. Inbox allows users to organize emails and set reminders for upcoming events. The app isn't here to replace your existing Gmail account. Rather, Inbox is meant to work alongside a Gmail account to make it easier to use. 

"[W]e get more email now than ever, important information is buried inside messages, and our most important tasks can slip through the cracks—especially when we’re working on our phones. For many of us, dealing with email has become a daily chore that distracts from what we really need to do—rather than helping us get those things done," Google said in a blog post. 

One of the coolest new features of Inbox is Bundle, which allows users to easily group emails based on categories. Bundle categorizes emails for you. Inbox automatically organizes emails into Travel, Purchases, and Social, but users can add other categories if they desire. Want to organize all your travel information? Inbox can pull all the emails pertaining to your next vacation. 

Then there is the new Highlight feature. Often an email's most important information is buried deep in message, so you have to scroll down to find the information you want. But Inbox will search emails for you and put the most important information at the top of the email. Let's say you have an email about a package that's being shipped; Inbox will put the shipping information at the top of the email and automatically update as needed.

Users can even use Inbox to organize all of their reminders. When a reminder is set, Inbox gives you information to make that task easier to accomplish. If you're going to the hardware store, Inbox will give you the store's phone number and the time that it closes. Have an email about an upcoming flight? Inbox will give you the link to check-in. 

"We want this to be your inbox for the next 10 years," Alex Gawley, product director of Gmail and Inbox, told USA Today. "We really want to do more of the work that our users are doing when they are trying to manage their lives through their inbox."

Emails were first introduced in the 1970s and have become the place where most people spend time online. Google first introduced Gmail 10 years ago, and it currently has hundreds of millions of users. But since then, there haven't been major upgrades. 

"Email may not be the new cool thing but it's the work horse that keeps performing," Shar VanBoskirk, an analyst at Forrester Research, told USA Today.

Inbox is available on Android, iOS, and desktop, but it's currently invitation only. Anyone trying to get their hands on the new app can get an invitation by emailing inbox@google.com. 

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