The 8 Best Tools to Help You Conquer Your Email
Did you know that 122,500,453,020 emails are sent every hour?
Despite all the Email-is-bad-for-you talk going out there, I say that with the right tools managing your inbox is not that hard at all.
In that good spirit, I decided to compile a list of some incredible tools that can help manage your email better:
1. FollowUpthen
Are you so swamped that you often forget to follow up? Time to get FollowUpthen.
As you probably already guessed, this tool sends you reminders to follow up on a particular email. You can send follow up reminders to your clients too.
If you want to remind yourself to follow up tomorrow, all you have to do is add ‘Tomorrow@followupthen.com’ either in Bcc, cc or to sections – each one has a specific function.
Why I love it?
It comes with a number of other features like calendar integration and works well with any email platform. Plus, it’s very simple to use.
2. Hiver
Hiver practically lets you manage all your business operations right from the inbox. It aims to improve collaboration among the employees and streamline your workflow.
By quickly adding labels to your emails, you can share entire email threads with others, using the shared labels feature. You can also delegate and track tasks using this feature.
Hiver is a complete package; it comes with many handy email management features like email snoozing, email scheduling, adding notes to emails and sharing those notes, sharing contact lists and more.
Unlike many other task management tools, where you have to to and fro between the tool and the inbox, Hiver allows you to manage everything right out of the inbox. Also, it is very intuitive and simple to use.
3. Unroll.me
We all hate spam, don’t we?! But is it really spam if we subscribed to it at one point?
Unroll.me can be your savior here. It allows you to block out all those unwanted promotion emails with a click.
As soon as I signed up, they had a list of all my subscription emails. The tool allowed me to quickly opt out of any of those subscriptions right out of the list. If you are too busy to go to each and every one of your subscriptions and undo it individually, this tool is just right for you.
Unroll.me also allows you to schedule the time at which you want all these subscription emails to arrive in your inbox and all your subscriptions emails are rolled up into one email. Quite handy isn’t it?
4. Sidekick
Sometimes you send an important email and are anxiously waiting to hear back. Did you ever wish you could know if the other party opened your email?! If yes, you will love Sidekick.
Sidekick automatically sends you a notice when the recipient opens your email. Additionally, you will also be able to see the profiles of those you contact; Valuable info such as their Job title, Social media content, mutual connections if any etc. will be at your disposal.
In addition to satisfying humans’ need to know, Sidekick puts you one step ahead so you can make your next move with a well-designed strategy.
5. Rapportive
Rapportive is one my favorites. It is incredibly useful because it familiarizes me with the person I want to contact; especially when you are reaching out to someone for the first time this tool can prove to be very handy.
Also, you can see if the person resides nearby and in that case, you can invite them for a nice coffee chat.
This is a great way to build and expand your network and get to know the people in your network.
It saves a lot of manual effort on my part. I don’t have to go online and research about the person myself; all the information is handed to me on a silver platter.
6. Gmail offline
Off to a place where the internet connectivity is bad? Who says you need the internet to manage your inbox.
You can read, search, archive and respond to emails even without the internet using Gmail Offline.
If your work involves a lot of traveling, this can come in handy. All you have to do is to download the app using Chrome and you are all set.
This tool works smoothly and is also quick and efficient. A bad network can’t halt your business anymore and is great for emergency work situations.
Read also: 25 Helpful Google Calendar Hacks
7. Wisestamp
When running a business or in any scenario, for that matter, you may have to cold email people.
Wisestamp is a great tool to have in this situation. It allows you to add character to your email by adding a profile picture, your phone number, website address etc.
This way when cold emailing someone, they can access all the information about you through your signature, which will help them authenticate you as a person.
Also, having an informative signature is a good way to promote your business.
If you like to keep your emails appealing, you will love this tool. There are a number designs and styles to choose from.
8. Inbox Pause
Email distraction is a big problem. You are so involved and focused on finishing a particular task and everything is going so well until you hear your email ping! And there, you just lost all your focus and flow.
Inbox pause gives us an excellent solution for this problem. Once you download the tool, a small pause button is added to your mail.
When you are about to start an important task that will need all your focus, you click on this pause button and it puts all your emails on hold and you can later unpause it when you are ready.
I think it is an elegant, simple and powerful solution to email distraction. Whether you are on a vacation or you have a major deadline coming up, this tool can prove to be extremely useful.
There is no shortage of tools promising to do many things for you. But it is up to you to ensure that the tools and apps you select align well with your requirements and goals.
Using too many tools will be counter productive. Try them out and see what works for you, eliminate the rest.
About The Author
This is a guest post by Niraj, founder of Hiver – an app that turns Gmail into a powerful customer support and collaboration tool.
