Inbox Overload?

Sanebox offers a solution

By Yardi Blog Staff on Oct 19, 2012 in Technology

SaneBox has itself a catchy name. More importantly it has an effective solution to the burgeoning problem of inbox overload: automatic management, effortless prioritizing, and a robust schedule of tools to improve convenience and functionality. If you have a high-volume inbox or multiple email accounts and not enough hours in the day to tend to them, this could be the answer.

So… are emails driving you nuts?

How it works appears very simple, but some heavy-duty A.I. processing take place under the hood. SaneBox is a cloud application and compatible with any IMAP-based email service. To get started all you have to do is enter your email address and click the permission button: SaneBox squirrels into your inbox and begins organizing the ambient chaos into a more efficient arrangement. Several algorithms are used, with sender-recipient volume and subject line content the most heavily-weighted.

Is this just a fancy tool to sort spam? Not by a long shot. The first thing you’ll notice is that SaneBox outputs your email into prioritized folders. Your main box receives the most important emails, less important ones are shunted into a SaneLater folder, older items go into SaneArchive. You can juggle items from one folder to another to help the application learn what goes where. Here’s a video showing SaneBox in action:

SaneBox delivers a very robust service, so effective in fact that it takes a little getting used to. It learns exceptionally quickly, particularly if you take a moment to correct the (very few) mistakes it makes in the first 48 hours. You can help steepen the learning curve: link SaneBox to your social media accounts and it does its job faster, more accurately, and objectively better.

SaneBox also offers several other features that expand its utility. The SaneBlackHole folder lets you permanently exile any sender, ensuring their emails are disappeared before you see them – perfect for messages from aggrieved bill collectors and grasping dependents. SaneTomorrow and SaneNextWeek folders hold emails then return them to your inbox when specified; the period can be adjusted as you see fit. SaneRemindMe provides reminders of your important emails that go unanswered.

Is there room for improvement? Yes, but that depends on just how much intrusion consumers are willing to tolerate. SaneBox does not read the contents of emails, a comfort line that most users are happy to see remain uncrossed. This imposes certain limitations: SaneBox typically does not discriminate between multiple emails from a single source, even though you might value some vendor emails (order confirmations, limited-time coupons) more than others (survey requests, purchase recommendations).

SaneBox has obvious appeal to anyone with a high-volume of incoming emails; at the 100+ daily level, SaneBox can begin to deliver on its promise to save users two hours a week or more managing their inbox. It can also provide a real boost if you have multiple email accounts across a spectrum of platforms, and who doesn’t nowadays? Personal Gmail account, work account, an old cable service account where Grandpa emails you because he doesn’t know how to update his address book, blog accounts… SaneBox offers a tool to bundle them for easy manageability, no more checking individual accounts.

Putting a tool in charge of sorting your email is an idea that might take a little getting used to. The company is helping build trust in its capabilities with a free 14-day trial: if you don’t like it SaneBox automatically puts everything back the way it found it. If the product helps you it is only $5/month to buy in at the bottom tier… at that price it would be hard to say “no” to getting two hours of your life back each week.