Notion Mail is lastly out within the wild, for anybody who has a Gmail account. And it is quintessential Notion. If you happen to’ve used the usual Notion app, you actually cannot confuse it for anything.
Notion Mail is a minimalist and text-based tackle the Mail app that is not making an attempt to do something revolutionary. There are not any AI summaries, and no difficult cut up views like in Superhuman. It is simply your e mail, sorted in a means that you just like.
What does it imply, although, to use the Notion philosophy to e mail, and is it ok so that you can make the change? That’s, for those who even can. At present, Notion Mail solely works on the Internet and on Mac, and it solely helps Gmail accounts (leaving out Outlook and enterprise emails). Notion Mail’s iOS app is on the way in which, and the Android app will launch in 2025 as properly. However there is no app for Home windows on the roadmap.
What’s Notion?
Notion Mail is the newest product from Notion Labs, which is understood for its extraordinarily customizable be aware taking app. Each be aware in Notion begins with a clean web page, however could be personalized with blocks, tables, pictures and extra. Some folks even flip it right into a database, as Notion makes it simple to hyperlink one web page to a different.
Notion is free to make use of for particular person customers, however prices $10 monthly per person for companies. Plus there’s the $10 monthly value for Notion AI, which I will come again to beneath. Basically, Notion Mail goals to take the identical minimalist method of the note-taking app, and apply it to e mail.
Notion customers will really feel at dwelling
Credit score: Khamosh Pathak
Let’s begin with how Notion Mail appears to be like and works. It has the identical unassuming black and white design that Notion is understood for. The buttons are grey, and there are not one of the pastel colours or rainbow gradients often present in AI apps nowadays. In different phrases, it seems like Gmail did 15 years in the past, however modernized.
There is a sidebar that exhibits all of your views, after which an inventory of e mail. And that is that, so far as design goes. However as a result of that is Notion, there’s additionally a extremely helpful command palette (Command+Okay), so you may compose emails or take actions with out leaving your keyboard.
Credit score: Khamosh Pathak
There’s help for keyboard shortcuts, too, and native Markdown help, which makes formatting lengthy emails a breeze (and is one thing that is lacking from Gmail and each different main e mail app).
Notion AI can be built-in into the compose field, so you may spotlight textual content and enhance your writing, or write an e mail with a immediate.
For integrations, you may arrange reminders to remind you to answer to an e mail, in case you miss it. You can too combine Notion Calendar to simply show your availability.
It is all about AI Auto Labels
Notion is not rocking the boat with its mail app, however its promoting level is the Auto Label characteristic, which is coupled with the sidebar’s Views characteristic. Let’s discuss in regards to the Views first.
Once you first click on on Views, you will be prompted to create feeds for e mail classes like Promotions, Calendar invitations, Updates, and extra. You may even be prompted to create customized Views primarily based in your inbox. As an illustration, the app instructed that I make a view for all my GitHub emails, which is barely complicated as a result of I am nowhere close to a developer.
However you may go in and create a brand new View at any time. Notion has some templates able to go from the beginning, however the best option to go about it’s to make use of a immediate and the AI Auto Label characteristic.
What do you suppose to date?
Credit score: Khamosh Pathak
Click on the Auto Label button within the high toolbar any time to create a brand new Label. Right here, you will see a easy textual content field. Enter any immediate right here to create an auto label. For instance, you may enter “Emails from Reddit” or “Emails from Grace” to get began. It will probably assist to get a bit granular: The extra detailed or particular that you would be able to make it, the higher off you will be.
After you enter the immediate, you will see a toggle change asking if you wish to separate out these emails from the Inbox or not. Notion can even immediate you to “auto label comparable” emails as you go about your online business.
Don’t fret: Notion will ask you to approve any labels earlier than making use of them. If it is gotten one thing mistaken, you may take away that e mail, or add in an e mail that the system missed.
Credit score: Khamosh Pathak
After a few days of utilizing AI Auto Labels, my expertise has been blended. The very first thing to notice is that Auto Labels do not go way back to I would really like. So you may’t use it to type out all of your invoices from Amazon previously yr in a single View. For that, you’d nonetheless want to make use of Gmail search, or one other AI like Shortwave. Although, you may create a View for all incoming Amazon emails and invoices, so your future emails will a minimum of be all set.
Credit score: Khamosh Pathak
Whereas Notion Mail is free, you additionally solely get restricted entry to Notion AI options within the free plan, together with the Auto Labels characteristic. Notion does not make it clear what the particular limits are for people, however I bumped into them fairly rapidly after doing my informal testing, the place I created 5–6 Auto Labels and examined out Notion AI’s writing capabilities. Enterprise limitations are a bit clearer, as Notion says free AI tokens are restricted to 500 responses for a workspace. And the extra folks you add in a workspace, the extra Notion raises the free responses limits.
As for me, my Notion AI trial ended after simply 10 or so responses. And as soon as that occurs, you will should both watch for the subsequent month to get extra free AI credit, or pay up the $10/month for limitless utilization. Once you run out of free Notion AI credit, the Auto Labels characteristic will cease working, and the button with have a Pink icon on it, too. The identical goes for AI writing options.
A Notion wrapper for Gmail
Notion Mail can function a pleasant various to Gmail customers who’re annoyed with rising bloat, or having to dodge Gemini sidebars. For these customers, the minimalist, test-heavy, keyboard-first, and Markdown supported tackle Gmail ought to function a sooner and less complicated various.
However with regards to AI, it is nonetheless a creating story. AI writing instruments at the moment are fairly normal in virtually each e mail app, so whether or not Notion will enchantment to you depends upon how a lot you prefer to label your e mail, and the way you might be in some AI assist with that. For one thing extra advanced, attempt Shortwave, which presents free and paid plans and presents some extra sturdy AI inbox integration. It is much less minimal, but in addition way more highly effective.
