Is your email program overloaded? Is your inbox full? Do you currently use Outlook as your email program of choice? If so, I want to tell you about a great new product I’ve been testing over the past few months to streamline my email process. It is called “Xobni” (or ‘Inbox’ spelled backwards) and is a free downloadable program online that installs directly into Outlook to help you manage your email. Xobni adds another window area to your existing Outlook email view (see the image above) and enables you to view your email as on-going conversations (just as you would if you used Google’s online email system, Gmail, to read your messages).
According to the Xobni website, “Xobni is the Outlook plug-in that saves you time finding email conversations, contacts and attachments.” After using Xobni myself for the past few months, I can agree. It makes finding past emails with particular contacts a breeze. I have been able to save a few steps each time I want to respond to an email while also knowing what was previously discussed with the same person. I especially have enjoyed the attachment feature. Since I send out alot of attachments in my emails, Xobni helps keep track of all these files in just one area. Now I don’t have to go back through my older messages searching for a specific attachment that was either sent or received.
The only down-side (and my biggest complaint) about using Xobni is the color of the interface. Currently the Xobni interface is bright orange and purple. I am keeping my fingers crossed that the Xobni creators will soon adjust the interface to a more pleasing (and subtle) color palette.
But don’t take it from me, if you want to test Xobni for yourself, click here.
