Mini-reviews are quick reviews, sometimes just a few words, of apps for Mac OS X & iOS.

I’ve been using Mailbox for over a week, and so far I really enjoy it. It’s a fast & efficient way to deal with email, with a few caveats. When I say caveat, I don’t mean that negatively; I just mean that you need to understand a few things about Mailbox.

  • You can’t see your Gmail labels. I have a lot of labels, but I’m trying to reduce the ones I have in favor of searching more. You can access All Mail, but only the most recent messages, & whatever labels you create within Mailbox (which the app calls Lists).
  • The app is for people who see email mostly as a to-do list. If you use email for exchanging passionate missives with your loved one, then Mailbox isn’t for you. If you see email as a list of things you need to deal with, then you’ll like Mailbox.
  • The app is for people who need to read & process & access relatively recent mail. Sure, you can search your mail, but the results don’t go back very far in time, even if you’re in the All Mail label (which Mailbox calls the Archive).
  • The gestures really are intuitive & well done. And fun!
  • The snooze feature is fantastic. I like the combination of the more general times like Tomorrow & Next Week along with the ability to specify a specific date & time for the message to appear again.
  • I dig the Futura font in the list of labels & Settings that you see when you press the hamburger symbol.
  • Messages that are too small to read in the official Gmail app (’cause you can’t resize the text—thanks, Google!) are very readable in Mailbox.
  • The app is free, which always makes me nervous. But I’m hoping that the company charges for the Mac version that I presume will eventually appear. Or charge for additional services. Or something. Just charge us!

Mailbox is now my most-used mail app on my iPhone & even my iPad—it’s that good. But I’m still keeping the Gmail app in case I need to access old mail stuck in a label somewhere, or if I need to search more than just recent stuff. In the last 10 days, I haven’t needed the Gmail app, but I know I will, so I’m keeping it around. But in the meantime, I’m very happy with Mailbox.