This App Actually Makes Email Triage Fun

Successful email management is a very real and constant struggle. But, it doesn't have to be quite so bad. A new app called Geronimo completely rethinks the email experience, and in doing so, makes inbox triage far more manageable, and almost...fun. Geronimo (free on iOS) makes changes to your traditional email experience in three ways: Through its layout, the way you navigate the app, and the customization it offers. The app makes it easy to see how much email you get each day, note which emails are read and unread, and take action on those emails so your inbox remains clutter-free. And when your inbox is successfully conquered, you can go about your day with far less stress. The differences start as soon as you open the app. Once you've linked your Google email address, Geronimo groups your emails chronologically by day. You can swipe downwards to peruse the emails you've gotten that day, or swipe horizontally to travel back through time to make sure you didn't miss any important emails on Sunday. A timeline at the top of the screen shows the volume of emails you get each day, and which day you're currently on. (This feature is interesting on a personal level — now you can see which days of the week you tend to get the most email, or if there's no pattern at all.)

Each email listing features a customizable, circular contact icon, as well as thumbnails of any attachments. In the app's settings, you can choose to turn read emails black-and-white, which offers a nice visual cue to differentiate them from full-color unread emails. Once you open a message, you can choose to snooze it so it reappears in your inbox hours or days in the future (you can customize exactly how long), or you can flick the email to one of the four corners of your handset to put it into a folder, archive it, delete it, or some other action of your choosing, like adding it to your to-do list. This flicking gesture — which the app's creator calls a "toss" — is fun, simple, and fast, allowing you to sort through your inbox more quickly than with other email apps. You can toss emails into a corner whether the app is open (by tapping and holding the subject line of the email) or closed (by tapping the email listing itself). And if you want to check what's on your to-do list or what you've recently deleted, you can tap a corner to be taken there.

Geronimo has a handful of other clever tricks that make it stand out from Gmail or your stock email app. Using the iPhone's built-in accelerometer and gyroscope, you can tilt your phone to navigate up and down through your emails — handy if your other hand is busy holding a handle on the subway. You can also customize five VIP contacts that sit at the top of your screen. You can drag and drop an email to each person's icon to quickly forward him or her something, and if you tap that person's icon, it automatically opens a new email draft. The app also goes further, optionally sorting out the "robots" (things such as email notifications) from emails from actual human beings that require a response. If you can learn — and remember — the app's gestures and interactions, Geronimo has the potential to make email management far less time-consuming and almost game-like. If you want to dive in yourself, you can download it here.