Email clients are like noses: everyone’s got one and they’re absolutely essential to your survival. There’s Mailbox and Outlook and Gmail and all the rest and now there’s Spark. Created by the folks who brought you Readdle, Spark splits your emails up into three sections – important notes, “pins” or starred emails, and all the rest. It is also Apple Watch-ready and offers an excellent client for assessing the state of your inbox from your wrist.
I’ve been using Spark for about a week and it’s finally become my default mail client. The card-based interface surfaces important messages from each of your accounts and then offers a listed of pinned emails below that. Finally, far below the app fold, you’ll find all the rest of your emails in chronological order. You can clear out an entire card with a single swipe and a helpful “Subscriptions” card can also be cleared out, thereby destroying hundreds of emails worth of junk in a single swipe. Almost every move in the app can be customized, from the position of the cards to the swipe interface.
The app also has some excellent search features – it works with both email addresses and email text – and it tends to bring up more matching emails than Apple’s own search and Outlook. It also has built-in integrations with multiple file and media platforms including Pocket, Dropbox, and Google Drive. It also offers automatic read receipts, a feature that you might not have known you were missing. I found read receipts quite useful, in fact, and the app also offers quick replies like “Like,” “Thanks, and “Smile.” This allows you to keep the conversation going without much investment.
Obviously switching email clients is a hard job. I moved from Outlook to Spark in order to simply try the new software. However, after a few days of active use, it’s become surprisingly useful. It’s especially useful if you’re trying to practice Inbox Zero or, in layman’s terms, just want to clear your inbox once and for all. Because the junk lands in a special little card, you can quickly and easily drain your inbox in seconds and get on with your life.
The app is available for iOS now and it’s free. I’d recommend giving it a quick look if you’re tired of Apple’s default Mail client or if you’re unsatisfied with the management capabilities of your current client.
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