When comparing Mailbox vs Gmail, the Slant community recommends Gmail for most people. In the question“What are the best e-mail clients for Android? ” Gmail is ranked 11th while Mailbox is ranked 22nd. The most important reason people chose Gmail is:
Since both the Gmail Android app and Gmail itself is made by Google, the app supports all features Gmail offers (like labeling/starring) and gets new features implemented early - usually as soon as they are announced.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Great features for processing mail quickly
Mailbox brings simple to use, swipe gesture-based ways of dealing with your incoming messages:
- A short swipe to the right archives a message
- A long swipe to the right deletes a message
- A short swipe to the left snoozes a message (puts it off until later)
- A long swipe to the left adds a message to a list (folder)
Pro Allows putting off messages until later
Swiping an e-mail message from the inbox to the left gives an option to 'snooze' it for a set period of time. You can manually enter the date for when to return it to the inbox or choose from options like 'later today', 'this weekend', and 'someday'.
Pro Message composer has a dedicated camera button
When composing a message, a button that allows for either taking a photo or quickly adding one from your library is at the bottom-right corner.
Pro Automates common actions
This app via a feature called 'auto-swipe' tries learning behavioral patterns and take appropriate actions on its own, like organizing mail into folders, snoozing certain mail, etc. You can view set rules and manually add and change them according to your needs in an easy to understand way.
Pro Free
Mailbox is available for free, although a premium version with added features might be in the works.
Pro Good looking design
Mailbox has a minimalist design. It divides your incoming messages in three categories - your inbox, things you've postponed and things you've gotten rid of.
Pro Best support for Gmail features
Since both the Gmail Android app and Gmail itself is made by Google, the app supports all features Gmail offers (like labeling/starring) and gets new features implemented early - usually as soon as they are announced.
Pro Incredibly fast, advanced & predictive search
Gmail brings much of the functionality and power of Google's search engine to the app's search. You can use operators such as label:, is:, OR, has: among others, define date ranges, limit search to specific groups and so on. And, you can do it all amazingly fast. The search will also try to predict what you're trying to search for before you've even finished your query and offer up those results.
Pro Google Drive integration
The app allows inserting files from Drive straight to email or uploading attachments to Drive before sending them out. It will also notify if the person you're sending the file can open the file or if you should change the sharing settings for that file beforehand. Finally, you can choose which one of your Google accounts you want visible in the app.
Pro Google Calendar integration
Pro Comes bundled with Android for free
Not only is the application free, it comes bundled with the Android OS by default so you don't even have to bother downloading it.
Pro Threaded conversations
Pro Safely automatically displays images
The app does not require a confirmation to show images as Google now hosts the images on their own servers making it safe. You can still disable the automatic displaying of images in the settings if you wish.
Pro Tabs to automatically organize your e-mail
Gmail offers the ability to automatically organize your mail into specific categories:
- Primary
- Social
- Promotions
- Updates
- Priority
Each of the categories can be disabled and you can move your mail around from category to category or set your own rules which sender should be put in which category.
Cons
Con Can't save drafts
Con No access to Gmail drafts folder
Con No Gmail labels
Con To be discontinued
Mailbox will be shutting down on February 26, 2016.
Con Privacy concerns
There's concern of privacy, because Mailbox has access to your emails, since they're passing through their servers. After being acquired by Dropbox these concerns have been somewhat alleviated, because of Dropbox's stable track record, but not completely.
Con Sorting mail by Unread is unintuitive
Nearly every other mail app has a clear way to sort mail by Unread. In Gmail app you can do that only by typing “label:unread” in the search field.
Con Very limited HTML composing
Composing of HTML formatted mails is very limited. No inline images and only some basic text formatting options.
Con Focused mailbox
There should be a way to disable focus mailbox completely.
Con Too bright, no dark theme
Con Advertising has been added to the client
Con Too heavy
It should be lightweight.
Con Limited notification buttons
Con Changed theme and can't change it back!
Did it without permission and it looks terrible! Washed out look, solid white background with black lame fonts.