Previously on this blog, Joshua Baer asked our Gmail Organizer users for their feedback. Organized messages are currently labeled with just one OtherInbox label. Josh suggested an alternative: multiple OIB labels like those in our Yahoo! Mail Organizer product. We wanted to know which you thought was better.

Based on your feedback from the blog, on our support site, and via emails from our users, the answer was clear. We will be introducing multiple OIB labels for Gmail Organizer on Monday, May 17. We think our Gmail Organizer users will enjoy having their messages categorized with these new labels as much as our Yahoo! Mail Organizer users do.

Too many labels? You can hide them!

With the new OIB labels, the list of labels in Gmail may become a bit lengthy. You can control this by going to Settings, then Labels, to choose which labels you want to see when Gmail loads. Clicking hide next to any label will hide it from the default view. This is a great way to highlight your most important labels so they stand out when you open Gmail.

Nested labels

You may have noticed a different naming scheme for OIB labels. Instead of OIB Shopping, like one of the folders in Yahoo! Mail Organizer, the Gmail version has a slash — OIB/Shopping. Why did we do this? So OIB labels will nest over IMAP.

If you read your Gmail messages over IMAP, OIB labels will group together under a parent folder named OIB. Depending on your email client, you may be able to collapse and expand this folder. This helps keep the folder list in your client organized and tidy.

Don't use IMAP? There is a Gmail Labs feature to show nested folders in the web version of Gmail as well! Just follow these instructions to turn it on:

• In Gmail, go to Settings, then Labs (or click the green flask icon next to Settings)
• Find the lab Nested Labels and click Enable
• Scroll to the top or bottom of the list and click Save Changes
• Go to Settings, then Labels
• Find the blank for creating a new label and create one called OIB

The result is nested labels that can be collapsed and expanded right inside of Gmail!

We really hope our Gmail Organizer users love using these new labels as much as our Yahoo! Mail Organizer users do. Combining OIB labels with some of the advanced features in Gmail make for a great way to keep your Inbox organized, automatically! To connect OtherInbox to your Gmail account, sign up with your Gmail account today!

Since we launched Organizer for Yahoo! Mail a year ago, the application has undergone several makeovers. It got the job done, but as with most applications in their first generation, it was definitely in need of some polish.

Below is what Organizer for Yahoo! Mail looked like when we launched the application just one year ago. Senders were listed in alphabetical order and not by folder. The sender's name could not be changed. Even the folders a sender was organized into could not be changed.

We've come a long way from these humble beginnings. There have been at least three complete redesigns of the application in the past year.

Our most recent redesign gives Organizer a fresh new look. As a Yahoo! Mail application, we wanted to reinforce how Organizer works with Yahoo! Mail. For example, you may notice the folder icons and the font for the folder names match how Yahoo! Mail presents folders. 

New features we've introduced in the past twelve months have also influenced the design. Grouping senders by folder allow you to drag-and-drop a sender from one folder to another. Since the most common action a user is likely to take is turning off the organizing of a sender, we've made this Folders page the first thing you see when you open the application.

What do you think of the current design? How can we make it better and easier to use?

It's even easier to invite your friends!

We love that so many of our users want to share Organizer with their friends and family. To make this even easier, we've added a new Invitations page right inside the application. Just click the Invitations tab to get started.

Click "Suggest people" and we will make some suggestions based on your sent messages. Or, just enter in the email addresses of your friends and family in the designated spaces. Review the message and click "Send invitations" and we will send your message with a link directly to the signup page. You can even track the status of your invitations in the column on the right. 

How many usernames do you think that you have today? It seems every web application out there has yet another username to remember. Sometimes, you can grab your usual username if you're early enough. However, if you're too late, you have a decision to make:

I want hoonpark, but it's not available. Do I change it to hoonpark1? hoon_park? Something completely different like AZNbieberFAN? Will I even remember that?

With this frustration in mind, we are looking at multiple ways to address it. The first we have implemented is a new login feature for our Organizer product. Since Organizer is connected to a user's existing email account, it makes sense to allow users to log in with their email address.

All Organizer users can now log in using their email address. For example, if you installed Automatic Organizer for Yahoo! Mail, just use your Yahoo! Mail address to log in.

Please note, your password for OIB is not necessary the same as your email account's password. If you do not know your password, check our support site for instructions for our Yahoo! Mail and Gmail users.

Since the introduction of Automatic Organizer for Yahoo! Mail earlier this year, many enhancements have been made to make saving your Inbox for real people even easier. We have been working hard improving Automatic Organizer to reflect the feedback from our users. I would like to take this opportunity to highlight a few new features now available to make your experience even more enjoyable.

File messages from new senders

Automatic Organizer is already set up to file messages from hundreds of different stores, social networks, and websites automatically without changing a single setting. However, if there’s a message from another sender that Organizer doesn’t pick up, it’s easy to change this. Simply drag-and-drop the message into the appropriate OIB folder.

Create your own OIB folders

In order to create your own folders for Automatic Organizer to use, simply add a new Yahoo! Mail folder and name it anything you like with the letters “OIB” in front of it, such as OIB Family, OIB Work, or OIB Restaurants. Then, drag-and-drop a message into this new OIB folder, and Automatic Organizer will file messages the same way from this sender in the future.

Change where your messages are filed

Within Yahoo! Mail, simply drag-and-drop a message from that sender from its current OIB folder to a new one. Or, you can open Automatic Organizer and choose a new folder or category next to the sender name.

Edit sender names

When a custom sender is created, sometimes the name of the sender is a
bit long or awkward. Open Automatic Organizer, click the sender name, type in a new name, and click OK.

Need help?

• Post a Question: Post a question, problem, suggestion (or even a praise!) on our support site, powered by Get Satisfaction.
• Tutorials: View a few short tutorial videos that demonstrate how to use Automatic Organizer.
• Twitter: Follow us on Twitter @OtherInbox
• FAQ: Have questions? We have answers.

Although we have undergone many improvements, we never stop discovering new ways to make Automatic Organizer work better for you. We are continuously rolling out new features with the help of our users. If you have any suggestions, please let us know. Thank you for your support!   

Earlier this year, we launched OtherInbox at SXSW with the ability to integrate with Gmail. Last month, we excitedly presented the Automatic Organizer, an application for Yahoo! Mail.

This week, we're announcing another major addition to our growing list of supported email services: Windows Live Hotmail! Simply point OIB to your Hotmail account and we can go through your inbox and filter the automated messages that don't come from real people. To get started, it's as simple as logging in to Hotmail!

Unlike with Gmail and Yahoo! Mail, OIB connects to Hotmail over Post Office Protocol (or POP). This means OIB can either leave messages in Hotmail's inbox or delete them. In the Gmail and Yahoo! Mail incarnations, we place the organized messages into folders. This way, they're still in your webmail account, just not in the inbox.

To start off, we decided to copy these messages into OtherInbox and leave them in Hotmail, so that no messages would disappear. If you use Hotmail, we would love to know what you think. Should we keep the messages in your inbox so they don't disappear, or should we delete the messages that we recognize?

If you use Hotmail, feel free to sign up for your OtherInbox today! Existing users can point OIB to their Hotmail account as well or read over some frequently asked questions.

After the recent introduction of our new Yahoo! Mail integration, we have been hard at work on new features. Today, we would like to announce the automatic filtering of mailing list messages from Google Groups, Yahoo! Groups, and other mailing lists. Also, we have upgraded our filters for Yahoo! Mail and Gmail to automatically group Craigslist messages as well.

Whether you are using Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, or the Yahoo! Mail application Organizer, it's easy to have your mailing list messages groups by list or your Craigslist emails organized by post.

Personally, I have found a lot of value with the Craigslist filters. When I post several items for sale, it can get confusing when people reply to all of my postings at the same time. With OtherInbox's filters, my Craigslist messages are organized into separate mailboxes for each item.

Customize OIB to filter even more messages in Yahoo! Mail

A few weeks ago, we announced the ability to customize OIB to filter even more messages in your Gmail account. Now, we are happy to also state that customizing OIB to filter messages in Yahoo! Mail is also available as well! It's as easy as dropping a message into a folder.

Over the last few months, OtherInbox has added several cool features,
and I want to make sure you are getting the most out of it.  Whether
you were one of the first beta testers or have just heard about it, there is probably something that will save you time in one of these videos. Click on the ones that are
applicable to you, or watch them all!  We would appreciate it if you
would share these videos with anyone you know who might need a little
help with email overload.

As always, thank you for your support!

(To view videos full size click on each screencast)

Connect OIB to your Gmail in 3 simple steps!

Connect OIB to your Yahoo! email

Go premium!

In addition
to keeping you organized and in control of your inbox again, OtherInbox
has many additional perks.  I wanted to share a few of the ways I use
OtherInbox to help me manage my work, hobbies, volunteer activities,
family, shopping, and even vacations.

How OIB helps me with my job

I’ve
had many superusers tell me that OIB has helped them with their
careers.  Several professionals, from hairdressers to leasing agents,
have reported ways that giving on the fly email addresses and having
organized mailboxes have made them more efficient and organized.  As
the Community Manager of OtherInbox, I use on the fly email addresses
to help me with networking, partnership activities, user feedback, and
volunteer organizations that we work with every quarter.  I give each
group their own email address, where they are all nicely organized and
easy to access in one place, my OtherInbox account. 

My own personal encyclopedia of knowledge

I,
like many people, have a lot of things I wish I knew how to do.  Being
a full time employee of an awesome startup and a full time parent does
not give me a lot of extra time to take classes and lessons.  However,
in the last year I have managed to learn how to start my first garden,
enhance my cooking skills, and stay up to date on the newest social
media trends!  How did I find the time to do all that?  I signed up for
the latest newsletters, blogs, and social groups like Ning and had them
all go to my OtherInbox!  It’s like customizing your own virtual
newspaper and reading it when you want to without it EVER overwhelming
your primary inbox.

My pond

Coupons and other money saving tips

We
all love a good bargain but not at the expense of giving out our email
address.  It is not worth overpopulating your inbox with spam and
risking it being sold to other companies.  My absolute favorite part of
having an OtherInbox is the ability to be fearless with my email
address.  I use an on the fly email to sign up for ANYTHING and
EVERYTHING I want.  It has become an obsession.  I sign up for all of
my favorite stores' newsletters, contests, and everything else I can. 
As a result, I get a ton of free stuff.  Free food, free books, and
coupons to all my favorite stores.  I still have not won anything, but
I check my OtherInbox daily to make sure.  It is kind of like playing
the internet lottery - for free!  Now, as you can imagine, I get
spammed all the time, but I don’t stress about it because I have the
power to keep spammers from ever emailing me again with just one
click.  I have also learned who leaks my email address out and will
never spend another dime in their stores or online with them.

All this money saving has made me want a vacation

Although
I have not yet saved thousands with OtherInbox, I still use it to sign
up for travel sites and possible vacation destinations.  My OtherInbox
notifies me of flight deals, discount vacation packages, and much
more.  When it is time to pack up the family and head out of Dodge for
a week or two, I know just where to go to get the most bang for my buck!

What do you do with your OtherInbox?

While
I hope some of this information was helpful, I am always amazed by the
creative ways other people use OIB to their advantage.  Share your
story with us, and email me at myoib[at]peeps.oib.com…oh look, I used it again .

The OtherInbox team has been hard at work making improvements based on the feedback we have received from you on help.oib.com and creating some cool, new features to help you continue to fight email overload.

Connect your OtherInbox account to Yahoo! Mail

Existing
users can now sync their Yahoo! Mail accounts through
OtherInbox directly. To sync to your Yahoo! Mail follow these steps or view this video:

1. Click "Settings" at the upper right hand corner 
2. Click on "Yahoo" in the left navigation bar
3. Click "Authorize OtherInbox"
4. Sign in with your Yahoo! Mail credentials

We're still working on enabling the Yahoo Organizer Application for existing users – please bear with us!

Connecting to both Gmail and Yahoo! Mail Requires a Premium Subscription

If you want to connect OtherInbox to BOTH a Gmail account AND a Yahoo! Mail account it requires a premium subscription that costs $19.99/year. In the future, you'll also be able to connect a single OtherInbox account to more than one Gmail or Yahoo account.

Summaries are now called Digests

We're transitioning to using the word "digests" instead of "summaries" for the daily email you get. It will take another sprint to get all of the changes in but we're going to start using that terminology from now on.

Get a Digest for any Mailbox on a Daily, Weekly or Monthly schedule

Now you can receive email digests for individual mailboxes on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. By default, OtherInbox will not send you individual mailbox digests – just the global digest across all your mailboxes.  You can change this by:

1. Click "Settings" at the upper right hand corner
2. Click "Mailboxes" in the left navigation bar
3. Scroll down and click on the mailbox title you wish to customize
4. Next to "Deliver my summary" choose the frequency you wish to receive

More behind the scenes

In addition to the
new features listed above, we've done a lot of work to speed things up and fix some pesky bugs! 

Please try out the new Yahoo! Mail integration and turn on a weekly digest for that mailbox that piles up but you don't often check. Tell us in the comments what you think!