Want A Complete Year-End Report On Your Email (For Free)? ToutApp Has You Covered.

I’ve been meaning to write about this for awhile now, but I’ve been a bit under the weather and, well, email is not a subject I always enjoy — in discussion or in practice. Yes, as many have written before, we have a love-hate relationship with email, which has been shown in even starker relief with the redesign of Gmail.

We first wrote about ToutApp back in June of last year and again in November, because they are a young startup (backed by some smart people) trying to give us a shot at greater email productivity.

Put simply, ToutApp integrates with Gmail and scans your inbox to parse through emails to identify the most commonly-sent mass emails, then creates a dynamic template for that email chain, allowing users to autofill recipients, auto-CC, attach files, etc. ToutApp also lets your outbound emails be tracked both for views and clickthroughs, so that you know when the recipient of the email has opened it and is planning a response.

It may sound invasive to some, but it’s a great tool, and you have to respect Tout Founder TK Kader’s perspective on email and entrepreneurship. Those put off by this scanning may balk at Tout’s year-end offer, but for those who receive a lot of email, I highly recommend it.

ToutApp has been offering something called “Your 2011 Emails In Review” that gives you a thorough look at everything from how many emails you received versus how many you sent, to what time of day you spend most time in your email, to the top recipients of your emails. More than 10,000 people have jumped on the bandwagon, which shows that this has already been a big success, publicity-wise for Tout.

Yes, you have to give Tout access to your email inbox, and as I said, some may balk at this. But if you’re willing, in less than 72 hours, Tout can give you a fairly complete set of analytics on your email habits. Catching a glimpse into your email activity can give you a better shot at productivity, efficiency, and, perhaps, a peace of mind. Perhaps not the latter, but at least your email will get a thorough vetting.

It’s nice to know what time of day I’m at my busiest, what day of the week, what buzzwords appear most in my email chains, and who is the unfortunate soul who receives most of my email communications. (Your mom!) This can help improve working relationships, your relationship with your inbox, and perhaps even with yourself.

I saw nearly 70,000 emails in 2011, and that doesn’t include my personal email. All in all, at over 100,000 emails, I saw how much people respond to the emails I wrote, and had the time for a bit of personal reflection on how best to optimize this percentage, along with how frequently I’m responding.

Unfortunately, Tout’s Year In Review is only for Gmail and Google Apps users, but it’s worth a look for those Googlers out there, and it’s a great complement to ToutApp’s freemium CRM email service (and $1 iPhone app). Check it out, and let the emailing begin — with improvements for 2012.