5 Gmail app alternatives to try for peak email productivity

If you ask the average person for their email address, chances are you’ll hear “@gmail.com.” That’s not surprising since over 30% of the world’s population uses Gmail. But while Gmail works well for basic use, it doesn’t always offer the tools needed for a truly productive workflow; when email becomes a core part of your workday, Gmail’s basic features can start to feel limiting. 

Email isn’t just for personal communications anymore; it has become a big part of how we work, and sometimes, Gmail’s default features are incapable of handling this intertwining. When this happens, that’s your cue to start looking for a Gmail app alternative—something with more power and less clutter.

While plenty of modern apps offer smarter automation and deeper customization, finding the right one can be tricky. In this article, we’ll show you how to choose the best alternative to the Gmail app and highlight five top picks to boost your productivity.

Gmail is packed with features that have made it a go-to choice for email. It handles the basics well, allowing you to send, receive, and organize emails. You can set up labels to categorize your messages and use filters to sort incoming mail, which can help keep your inbox tidy to some extent. 

Beyond the basics, it also offers some helpful extras, such as an advanced search bar, scheduled send features, and Smart Reply and Smart Compose to speed up email writing. 

Gmail covers the basics well, but for users who want to unlock greater efficiency with advanced features, it can be limiting. As a result, many users are switching to smarter Gmail app alternatives designed to streamline workflows and boost productivity.

Email platforms have come a long way, and if your current setup feels like it’s slowing you down, it might be time for a change. Here are some telltale signs it’s the right moment to switch:

• Spending too much time on repetitive email tasks: Writing the same email over and over is a time-waster and a clear sign that you could benefit from smarter tools. Many modern email apps offer AI features like reusable prewritten templates you can insert with a single click, saving you time and reducing effort. 

• Feeling overwhelmed by a cluttered inbox: When Gmail’s basic sorting features like filters and labels aren’t enough to keep your inbox organized, it might be time for something more powerful. Some alternatives offer automation for organizing emails without relying on manual effort and complex protocols.

• Wanting more control over your email interface: Gmail allows some customization for your inbox, but it’s only surface-level. If you need more advanced customization to personalize your inbox to specific workflows, projects, or senders, it’s time to consider other email apps. 

• Switching between Gmail and other productivity apps: While Gmail integrates well with other Google Suite tools, you may also rely on productivity apps outside the ecosystem. If you’re constantly toggling between apps to get work done, it’s a definite sign you need more robust integrations—something Gmail doesn’t offer. 

Keep reading: Convinced that Gmail is no longer right for you? Find out how to delete a Gmail account from your phone—Android or iPhone.

We’ve done the groundwork, thoroughly sweeping through the internet to identify Gmail app alternatives that truly shine when it comes to enhanced inbox organization and advanced email automation. 

Of all the numerous Gmail-like apps we found, we singled out these five for their attention to productivity and efficiency. They include:

1. Notion Mail

2. Outlook

3. Fastmail

4. HEY Email

5. Spike

Below, you’ll find each platform’s features, pros and cons, and pricing details. 

Notion Mail is the latest offering from the productivity powerhouse Notion. It’s an intelligent, AI-native, Gmail-only client that seamlessly integrates with your existing Gmail account. It offers the familiar functionality you rely on, enhanced with intelligent tools that adapt to your workflow. 

Notion Mail stands out for its smart use of AI and automation in email management, making it a top choice for boosting productivity. It leverages AI to automate and simplify your most time-consuming email tasks. 

The platform’s advanced capabilities suggest email responses, provide contextual replies, and even draft entire messages for you, helping you handle emails in seconds. 

Notion Mail helps enhance productivity with several time-saving features, including:

• Snippets: Save responses as reusable templates and eliminate the need to write the same email multiple times. All you need to do is insert it with one click.

• Keyboard shortcuts: Use a range of keyboard shortcuts for common actions (trash, reply, archive, etc.) and navigate through your inbox with ease.

• /Schedule: Use the slash command to effortlessly schedule meetings with the built-in Notion Calendar and avoid all the back-and-forth.

Another major strength of Notion Mail is its customization capabilities, which allow you to build “inboxes within an inbox.” This means you can organize emails based on criteria like sender, project, client, etc., and view only the sets of emails you need to see at a time. 

Note that Notion Mail is exclusively a Gmail client, so you’ll need to connect it to your Gmail or Google account to begin. 

Another major upside is that Notion Mail is free. All of the platform’s essential features come with the free plan, but if you want to explore more advanced tools, you can enhance your Notion Mail experience with the Notion AI add-on.

The table below outlines the key benefits and downsides of Notion Mail:

For those looking for Gmail-like apps that feel familiar but offer more powerful features, Microsoft’s Outlook is often the first choice. It’s a long-standing email option that works well if you’re already using other Microsoft tools. Being a part of the Microsoft 365 core apps, the app focuses on delivering a range of functions that help you boost your email productivity.

Outlook gives you the basics to keep your email organized and manage your inbox, including:

• Tools like folders, categories, and rules to help you sort and filter emails

• A built-in calendar and task manager, allowing you to schedule appointments and keep track of your tasks directly from your Outlook app

While it prioritizes functionality, Outlook’s interface can feel cluttered and overwhelming, especially for new users. It doesn’t look as familiar or visually appealing as more modern email apps, so the layout can make navigation challenging and difficult to master. 

Outlook offers customization options, such as color palettes and fonts, but if you need more robust customization features to set up your inbox view for specific workflows, the app can be a bit limiting.

Outlook does have some basic AI-assisted features to speed up your work. Focused Inbox helps auto-prioritize crucial emails, and the Suggested Replies feature helps you generate auto-responses to your emails. Sadly, some users have complained that this reply feature is not quite reliable.

If you’re looking for more advanced AI features, such as help drafting full emails, summarizing long emails, or auto-organizing your inbox, you may need to check out Microsoft 365 Copilot AI, which comes at an additional cost. 

Outlook is one of the apps embedded in Microsoft 365’s productivity suite, and it’s available for free. However, you can also explore its paid plans for additional features, as follows:

1. Home

   1. Microsoft 365 Family: $12.99/month

   2. Microsoft 365 Personal: $9.99/month

2. Business

   1. Microsoft 365 Business Basic: $7.20/month per user

   2. Microsoft 365 Business Standard: $15.00/month per user

   3. Microsoft 365 Business Premium: $26.40/month per user

   4. Microsoft 365 Apps for business: $9.90/month per user

Here’s a look at the pros and cons of using Outlook for productivity:

Keep reading: Running a company? Check our Gmail or Outlook for business comparison and explore some Outlook alternatives.

Fastmail is known for its reliability and focus on speed. It’s mainly suited for small teams but also serves as a solid alternative for users who prioritize performance and control. Fastmail has standard core features for organization and inbox management. 

It gives you:

• A clean and responsive interface that does a good job for email correspondence and reducing clutter

• Excellent support for folders, labels, and filtering rules, much like Gmail

These features give you some control over how your inbox is structured and how incoming mail is managed. 

The app includes built-in calendar and contacts features, but that’s about it in terms of an integrated productivity suite. You might find that calendar functions lack the depth and intuitiveness of more established email platforms. While there are decent customization options—such as switching layouts and themes—don’t expect highly personalized inbox views tailored to your specific needs. 

Fastmail primarily focuses on providing reliable email service—as of this writing, it doesn’t offer AI-powered features. Unlike most newer clients, it doesn’t have built-in AI tools for drafting emails or summarizing conversations, so you’ll need to do most of the work manually.

Good cross-platform support is available with Fastmail through web browsers and mobile apps (iOS and Android).

Fastmail is available exclusively through a paid plan, with options for individuals, families, and businesses, as follows:

1. Individual and Family

   1. Individual: $6/month (for just you)

   2. Duo: $10/month (for you and a partner)

   3. Family: $14/month (for up to six in a family)

2. Business

   1. Basic: $4/month per user

   2. Standard: $6/month per user

   3. Professional: $10/month per user

The table below summarizes the benefits and downsides of switching to Fastmail. 

Explore further: Need more insight? See how Fastmail stacks up against Proton Mail in our comprehensive guide.

HEY Email’s core focus is reducing inbox anxiety through unconventional email actions. It offers a feature called The Screener as part of its key productivity features, forcing you to approve senders before they enter your “Imbox.” This helps reduce unwanted messages. The messages that do come in are sorted into categories like Impersonal or Paper Trail for items like receipts, so you can focus on specific types of emails at a time. 

HEY’s interface is designed to reduce distractions and offers features like Reply Later and Set Aside that help you deal with emails when it’s most convenient. However, users have found the reply process to be more complicated than expected, with some claiming that replying to long threads can become chaotic, hindering the app’s intended simplicity. Customization in HEY is limited because the app is intentionally built to make you try emailing in a way you’re not used to. You can only put up cover art to block emails you’ve read.

Another disadvantage, compared to most modern clients, is that HEY doesn’t offer built-in AI-powered features. The design focuses on human intelligence over artificial intelligence, which may seem innovative, but is really just a nice way to make you spend more time managing your inbox. 

Although HEY is primarily web-based, it also offers apps for mobile devices. It has a built-in HEY Calendar, but it largely functions as a standalone email service with no other integrations with broader ecosystems. 

HEY Email keeps pricing simple and easy. It has three core offers and lets you try the service for free for 30 days. Pricing plans include:

1. HEY for You: $99/year

2. HEY for Families: $179/year

3. HEY for Domains: $12/month per user 

The following table summarizes the benefits and drawbacks of using HEY Email: 

Spike aims to modernize the email experience by presenting messages in a conversational, chat-like format, simplifying communication and collaboration and making them more natural. It organizes your inbox into conversations, such as text messages, making email threads easier to follow. 

Similar to Gmail’s Priority Inbox, essential emails are grouped together, while less critical messages are filtered into a Low Priority inbox. If you prefer traditional organizational methods, you should keep in mind that Spike doesn’t offer classic tags or folders for categorization. 

The platform features a sleek, modern interface, making it look like a messaging app. This conversational layout is one of its standout features, making it especially user-friendly. Some of the key features include:

• Online presence and read indicators that let you know when a recipient is online and has read your email

• Spike Notes, which bring collaborative note-taking tools to your inbox, letting you and the other person co-edit and brainstorm within the email

Although Spike’s chat-like design is intuitive, you may need some time to adjust to the nontraditional email setup. For customization, Spike allows you to switch email themes and set up notifications to suit your needs. As far as smart automation goes, Spike only offers Magic Message, an AI assistant that helps you draft emails and replies, brainstorm, and take notes. 

The service is available on web, desktop, and mobile devices, and its seamless Cloud integration lets you attach files from Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive. Spike is not a standalone email service—you’ll need to connect it to your existing email accounts.

You can get Spike for free, but the platform also offers premium plans for teams and individuals:

1. Email App (for individuals)

   1. Pro: $8/month per user

   2. Ultimate: $16/month per user

2. Teamspace (for teams)

   1. Team: $5/month per member

   2. Business: $10/month per member

Explore Spike’s pros and cons in the table below: 

If you’re moving away from Gmail because of the app’s productivity limitations, it makes sense to gravitate towards alternatives that prioritize efficiency. To make your choice easier, here’s a list of key features to look for in your next email app:

An alternative Gmail app that embodies these productivity-boosting features and is worth trying out is Notion Mail. It combines smart automation with thoughtful organization to help you manage emails with less effort and more clarity.

Notion Mail is a highly adaptable option for busy professionals and productivity enthusiasts seeking AI-powered efficiency and a simplified workflow. For instance, its AI autopilot feature allows you to set up simple prompts like “Order” or “Recruiting” to auto-sort, filter, and label emails. 

Beyond intelligent sorting, you can create short, non-complex rules to do more complex tasks like extracting key information from a message or prioritizing your messages based on your chosen criteria. 

The platform integrates seamlessly with the broader Notion ecosystem, letting you connect with its full suite of tools (including Notion wikis, Notion docs, and even Notion Calendar, which is free).

Notion Mail is available for iOS, Android, and Windows apps, allowing you to access your self-organizing inbox wherever it’s convenient.

Getting your Notion Mail account up and running is super easy! Once you sign up with your Google or Gmail account, you immediately get access to your emails, but with a fresh interface and speedy automation. 

All essential features are included in the free plan, but if you want to maximize the platform’s automation capabilities, you can get the , unlocking advanced productivity features.

Bonus read: If you need help managing your email or want more insight, browse through our knowledge base below:

• How to delete all promotions in Gmail

• Does Gmail delete old emails?

• Proton Mail vs. Gmail

• Zoho Mail vs. Gmail

• How to delete your Proton Mail account

• Best Outlook alternatives for Android

• How to fix Gmail not syncing with the iPhone Mail app