As our colleagues at TechCrunch scooped earlier Thursday, Notion is announcing the email client at its first “Make with Notion” user conference. At the moment, Notion Mail is in preview and, at least for the time being, is more like a Gmail client than a traditional email service. The idea here, according to Notion, is to build an email experience that allows users to “throw away the old ways of rigid inboxes and do things the new way: making email work for you and your workflow.” It is to do.
However, when exactly Notion Mail will launch is still a question mark. The company is only promising “soon” at this point, but there is a waiting list to get early access.
With the addition of Mail, Notion (which currently claims to have over 100 million users) continues on its path to offering a more complete suite of productivity options. After all, Notion Mail's launch comes just a few months after the company launched its calendar product. Notion Calendar is notable, but it's the product of an acquisition that saw the company acquire calendar app Cron in 2022.
Similarly, Notion recently acquired Skiff, a security-centric platform that also has an end-to-end encrypted email service. So it's no surprise that Notion Mail takes some design cues from Skiff, but security isn't the company's focus here (though that's just as top-notch for Notion. I'm sure it's a priority). Integration with Notion AI.
Image credit: Notion
There seem to be two parts to the AI integration here. One is the ability to automatically organize emails using AI prompts as a kind of smart filtering mechanism (think “label all recruitment emails by stage and show role”). “Let Notion AI handle the tedious interactions like scheduling and follow-ups,” the company says. How well it works in practice remains to be seen.
One of the great features that Notion Mail offers, and which I often wish I had in Gmail as well, is the ability to use different filters as well as prioritize emails within a filtered view. Gmail, on the other hand, only offers a “Focused Inbox” view of your main inbox, but when you drill down to default categories like Forums, Updates, and Social, the only option is a reverse timeline view.
Another integration worth noting is with Notion Calendar. Users will be able to add a schedule button to their emails that links directly to their calendar or availability.
Image credit: Notion
In addition to Mail, Notion also releases many other new features. These include Notion Forms, which uses Notion as a database to allow users to design forms and collect information, and more easily customize the layout of Notion to suit user preferences, such as tasks, notes, documents, and how documents are displayed. Contains features that can be customized. And so on.
Notion is also releasing some improved automation features, including the ability to connect Notion and Gmail to notify people via Gmail. And to top it all off, Notion has updated its marketplace and redesigned its web experience.