Google Inbox was launched in 2014 as a new way to manage emails but, just four years later, Google abandoned the application and instead devoted its time to improving Gmail. While Google incorporated some of Inbox’s features into updates for Gmail, many popular features died with Inbox. So, what made Google choose Gmail over Inbox?

Inbox offered a new way to use the email inbox as a productivity tool. It took content from emails and gave users a compressed version of the vital information, in some cases without having to open the email at all. For example, in emails of online order confirmations, Inbox would provide a photo of the item purchased and would let users know if the item had shipped without them even having to open the email. It would group emails, both from the same newsletters as well as by content. Inbox automatically created different bundles that served as different categories into which emails were sorted, such as social and trips. It would group emails about a specific event automatically and connected directly with Google Calender. It also allowed users to save links or other information that they emailed to themselves in a separate category and it even created a way for users to snooze emails and create reminders at the top of their inbox.

Related: What Are Gmail Smart Features, How To Use Them & How They're Changing

Gmail, while a great email platform, is very traditional in many of the ways the setup and inbox itself works. Inbox was a totally different experience for email management. While organization in Gmail involves creating new pages for new categories, Inbox allowed all of those categories to be seen from one page in collapsable sections. Additionally, much of Gmail’s organization has to be programmed manually, while Inbox organized your emails automatically. That being said, when Inbox was abandoned, they did try to move over some of the best features to Gmail. Some of these features, include nudging, snoozing emails, and smart replies, have been adapted into Gmail’s Smart Compose functionality.

Why Was Inbox Shutdown

An email logo overlaid on an iPhone

It isn’t totally clear why Google got rid of Inbox, as it was largely popular by those who opted to use it. When Inbox was first introduced, many thought it would eventually replace Gmail, but Gmail has long been one of the most popular email platforms, and many users did not switch over to Inbox during its release. Gmail retained a much larger user-based and, ultimately, Google opted to focus on Gmail rather than maintaining two different email platforms.

Inbox did provide a good way for Google to test out different email features and more will make their way to Gmail. Indeed, it may be that Inbox itself was intended to just be a testing ground for Google rather than its new default, although that seems unlikely. Gmail is more customizable and does have different strengths to Inbox, though.

For many, Inbox was the better and more innovative email platform — perhaps it was ultimately too innovative for the majority of Gmail users. While Gmail lacks the creativity of Inbox, it still serves as a very popular and well-used email service and is more innovative than many of its competitors. There are plans to bring more of Inbox’s features to Gmail with future updates, but for now, we can only mourn its loss.

More: Google Taking On Microsoft & Slack With Major Gmail Update

Source: Google