20 Productivity Tools That Work With Your Gmail Inbox

Gmail is ubiquitous today. In fact, we wouldn’t be surprised if people were to use “Gmail” as a word to mean “email” just as “Fedex” is used for courier or “Xerox” is used for photocopying.

Gmail is quick, simple to use, and is gargantuan in size (and it keeps growing). It’s also one of those few email solutions that’s highly effective in keeping spam out of your inbox. Popular products generally breed parallel industries, so to speak. Gmail is no different.

It has spawned the growth of many applications and web-based tools – including our very own RightInbox — which you can use along with Gmail for various tasks.

Here are 20 productivity tools that sit right within your inbox to change the way you work and to enhance your productivity.

Unroll.Me

During the course of the day  there will be plenty of requests to subscribe to a newsletter from various sites you visit. These messages can make an unholy mess in your inbox and obscure the few updates you really want to check out. Unroll.me is an extremely quick and easy way to manage these subscriptions and cut loose from the ones you have no need for.

Right Inbox

Join more than 250,000+ professionals that have added Right Inbox to Gmail for next-level email productivity. Right Inbox saves you time on repetitive tasks and helps you to send better emails, in less time consistently. High performers use Right Inbox to get the most out of their Gmail account.

Once you install the Right Inbox app — a process that takes very little time — you’ll immediately gain two levels up of time-saving, productivity-improving tools.

Right Inbox’s integration with Gmail’s interface is seamless. You’ll barely notice it’s there. Until you look under the hood.

By installing Right Inbox, you’ll get all the functionality that you wish Gmail included as standard. You can find a full rundown of features here:

• Send Later – need an email to reach someone’s inbox at a specific time? Write emails now, schedule to be sent later for perfect timing by using Right Inbox’s send later feature.
• Email Tracking – Find out who reads and clicks your emails, how many times, and when. Real-time insights on who reads your emails and who’s ignoring you.
• Email Reminders – Automatic reminders so you never lose track of important emails. Remind yourself of conversations when it becomes relevant.
• Mail Merge – scale your cold outreach quickly without losing the personal touch. Contact a large number of people with a customized personal message
• Private Notes – need to keep track of particular details alongside an email contact? Simply use the private notes feature.
• Recurring Emails – fed up with sending the same email over and over again? Use the recurring emails feature to send them at intervals that suit you.
• Sequences – send follow-up emails depending on whether the last email has been opened or not. Use together with Templates to apply your most effective follow-ups with one click.
• CRM Sync – easily sync your emails with the most popular CRMs on the market.
• Email Signatures – need multiple email signatures on one Gmail account? Right Inbox has you covered, allowing you to flip between email signatures quickly depending on the context.
• Email Templates – do you often need to write and send almost identical emails? Optimize and personalize your template to fit every contact’s unique context. Save yourself time with the email templates feature.
• Add a GIF – search for and add a GIF in seconds. Browse trending GIFs, search by keyword and save your favourites to use later.

Right Inbox won’t magically transform you into the world’s best marketer or salesperson overnight — but it can give you a chance at that honor. This platform will make it easier to perform at the levels demanded by today’s consumers. Supercharge the way you use your email.
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GQueues

GQueues or Google Queues is a full-featured task manager and it syncs with both your Gmail and Google Apps accounts. It has a pretty – while still being practical – design and is extremely easy to use. It features drag and drop task addition and deletion, full Google Calendar integration, sharing & collaboration, reminders, recurring tasks, tagging, sub-tasks, assignments, and smart queues.

We find that it’s natural Google Apps integration valuable for small businesses while sub-tasks and recurring tasks along with Google Calendar integration make it a fully featured, must-have tool for Gmail or Google App users.

GQueues has recently switched from HTML 5 to Native Mobile App and is also available for Android Devices on Google Play

Google Tasks

Google Tasks isn’t like Google Queues. Think of this way: Google tasks is a pared down, simplistic version of Google Queues (although there’s nothing much in common between them).

If Gmail is the “default” email product you use, Google Tasks is a no-brainer for the fastest and the most efficient way to maintain your daily, weekly, and monthly task lists, schedules, and recurring tasks. The app doesn’t boast of anything overtly fancy. Instead it’s an application that has simplicity at its core. It opens up right next to your inbox and allows you to move emails as tasks. You can add anything to your task list such as prospecting emails, follow-up reminders for tasks; create to-do lists on the fly, and much more.

If you need something more complex—provided you’re not a solo-preneur, or if you’re working in a team—glance over these project management tools, which have been reviewed in detail

Any.Do

Any.do is one of the coolest, simplest, and the most efficient productivity tools ever. It might not be heavyset with features and bloated up beyond its purpose, but it’s a tool that just works. Any.do isn’t available as a web-based version yet (coming soon) but it’s available as a Chrome App and as mobile apps for both Android and for the iPhone. It’s also available for the tablets.

Featuring simple task lists with elegant features and a functional design, it makes your job easier. It’s not the kind of app that you’d have to spend too much time on.

Speak to your iPhone (using Siri) and the app will let you note your things to do for the day (or for other days during the week). Strike off tasks completed and later shake them off your list just by shaking your phone. When on landscape view, the task list partitions off to allow for a calendar to show up to give you a better idea of how your week looks like.

Did we mention that anything you enter on your chrome app (straight off Gmail) and mobile or tablet syncs with either device?

Astrid

Astrid is yet another robust and much-loved productivity tool available as an app for mobile, for the tablets, and on the web. It’s a sharable task manager and you can share lists with your friends, colleagues, family, and friends.

The Astrid Chrome App embeds the little Astrid into your Gmail to let you add, delete, and edit tasks as you go. It also integrates with Google Tasks, if you want it to work that way.

Wise Stamp

Since the average American is sending about 30 emails a day, most of us could use an upgrade to our Gmail signature. The problem is we don’t how to bring it to life without a designer and some HTML. Enter WiseStamp: The company turns your email signature into a one-stop asset that presents all the of most relevant contact information for you or your business, unlocking the full potential of this marketing channel. This makes it very easy and convenient for clients, customers, partners and leads to reach you through the channel they prefer most, be it by phone, email or social media.

WiseStamp is used by more than 850,000 active users. In addition, more than 2,000 companies use their Company Email Signature Management Software with their customer-facing teams to dynamically promote content, events and social media channels.

Hive

Hive, the AI-based productivity tool behind brands like Uber, Starbucks and Netflix, recently launched an email integration in-app that is going to save you serious time. The tool, which already had native chat, now integrates seamlessly with your Gmail inbox — it actually syncs and uploads your Gmail and Outlook inboxes into the app, so you can send and receive messages from Hive.

You can even attach email chains to action cards (the app’s version of a “to-do” item) and assign them to yourself or another user. For example, if you receive an email right as you’re leaving the office and don’t have time to reply right then and there, you can assign the email into an action card and set the due date as the following day. Hive makes it super easy to stay on-top of emails and the to-dos that correspond to them.

Checker Plus

The best extension for users of multiple Gmail accounts—is Checker Plus. It gives you fast access via a drop-down menu in Chrome, desktop notifications, color coding, even voice input for writing messages. There are a number of additional useful features and the developer offers excellent customer support and regular updates.

Mail Timer for Gmail

A Timer to keep you focused while processing your inbox in Gmail. This is a time-saving script  to help process your inbox faster. After 2 minutes spent on an email in your inbox, it pops up a reminder message to move on. (And when you have less than 30 seconds left, it shows a “30” icon in the browser bar to nudge you along.)

Just Not Sorry

Just not sorry is an email tool that prevents you from “apologizing” too much in professional correspondence. In short, it helps you to present your message assertively and confidently.

The extensions will scan your message and warn you of words like, “I’m sorry,” “I think,”
“I’m not an expert.” “actually,” and “does that make sense?” Or any similar words that jeopardize your voice and expertise.

To use the tool, download it from the Google Chrome Webstore and pin it to your browser. It will do its magic any time you compose an email.

Zoom for Gmail

This is an add-on feature that allows you to start a Zoom meeting without leaving the Gmail interface.

However, arguably the best thing about it is that it allows you to seamlessly schedule meetings, synchronize contacts, and easily insert them into the Google calendar or taskbar.

This Zoom add-on also provides HD picture quality and crystal clear voice functionality for video calls while still allowing you to share content pieces on the platform.

Its main features include:

• Instant video call functionality
• Reliable and high-quality video conferencing capability within the Gmail interface
• Easy scheduling of meetings

Simple Gmail Notes

This Gmail extension does precisely what it claims it can do. The tool is designed to help users write simple “sticky” notes in their emails. The notes created are stored on Google Drive.

The extension can help you locate specific emails faster by providing valuable data to give you context or follow up on what you’re searching for.

It’s an open-source application and 100% free. The tool doesn’t limit you to Google chrome only. You can also use it in firefox and edge. Moreover, you can use the tool in multiple Gmail accounts in the same browser.

Additional Reading: How to Add Notes in Gmail

FlowCrypt Gmail Encryption

Even though Gmail has its in-built feature designed to help you to send confidential emails, there may be a few scenarios where that option on its own isn’t safe enough.

You might feel concerned that your emails can get intercepted and read. As a result, you need to encrypt your emails for safety.

FlowCrypt Gmail encryption extension gives you access to PGP encryption functionality, which allows you to encrypt the messages you send. The people that’ll find this application most beneficial are the ones that use email to send sensitive information.

Grammarly

Grammarly productivity is a tool that helps you correct spelling and grammatical errors in your Gmail message on the fly. It’s like having an extra pair of eyes that review your writing.

The tool also suggests the improvements you need to make in messages that are not based on the commonly recognized grammatical rules.

Grammarly has a paid version costing $12/month. Though it gives additional advanced corrections, the free account is just as suitable for basic use.

BatchedInbox

It can be very frustrating getting new email alerts when you’re doing something important. You’ve probably experienced this pain once or twice before, right? Well, BatchedInbox can help you avoid the disruption.

It gives you the ability to “batch” all your emails. This means you’ll receive all your new messages at once instead of having them trickle in slowly throughout the day.

If you get your daily schedule right, you could end up having several uninterrupted hours. You can spend these hours working on the important stuff and still have incoming messages that you’ll read later.

ActiveInbox

Everyone desires to have an organized email. Sadly, most people can’t do this. And you can’t rely on the Gmail search function. Activeinbox is like a handle on your email.

It is a great organizational and management software. ActiveInbox comes with gives multiples features that allow you to measure and boost your productivity. The software has two parts. The first part allows you to streamline writing replies.

With the second feature, you can turn your emails into tasks and group them into projects. You’ll then break the list down into smaller, more digestible chunks.

Finally, ActiveInbox gives you the ability to schedule emails and create follow-up reminders. This is the perfect productivity tool for those that use email to drive their work forward.

Inbox When Ready

This application only does one thing, but it does that one thing very well. Inbox when ready allows you to lock down your inbox for a certain amount of time.

Like BatchedInbox, the software also keeps your Gmail inbox organized. You will be able to check your inbox with reasonable frequency, process your emails on a regular schedule, and minimize the total time you spend in your inbox.

The tool’s main features include:

• The ability to schedule lockdowns beforehand
• The ability to automatically hide your inbox
• Ability to set inbox budgets

KeyRocket

Did you know that Gmail has over 100 keyboard shortcuts? Well, it does.

You can access sections and features via a single keystroke. Some might not overthink this; however, if you can fully understand and master these keyboard shortcuts, you could save a lot of time.

The thing is, memorizing all the shortcuts is something most people don’t want to do. The goal of KeyRocket is to make the process as seamless as possible.

The tool sits in the background as it watches all your moves. It will automatically notify you when there’s a keyboard shortcut you could’ve taken, which helps you learn the best shortcuts faster.

Ginger

Another excellent grammar and spelling tool is this Chrome extension, Ginger. Like Grammarly, the software provides you with real-time alerts whenever you make mistakes when typing.

But, that’s not all. It also provides suggestions and alternative phrases to both sentences and words that could’ve been clearer.

Furthermore, it has other interesting features such as a contextually relevant synonyms finder and in-built dictionaries. Not only will these features help you write faster, but they’ll allow you to churn out more robust emails as well.

Its main features include, Grammar checker and error analysis and an in-built dictionary alongside sentence rephrasing functionality.

Bonus Tool: Markup Hero – Every productivity ace needs a screenshot and annotation tool in their toolbox.