You have to wait for later in the year, IIRC. That’s one reason some people questioned whether it launched too early.
Haha good catch, fixed!
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Thanks; that was a great review that gets at the complexity of considering changing an email address, changing or migrating an email management system, and either changing one’s personal email philosophy or bringing email in line with it, all at once.
They seem like an example of the kind of user I suspected to exist in my review: someone who receives a lot of wanted email from new addresses, thus who needs to manage the Screener like an inbox.
In other areas I was less sympathetic. I like that Hey makes inbox zero impossible, aesthetically, and I suspect that the way Hey forces its users to give up constantly clearing their inboxes is good for the users. Same for set aside/reply later. But Gmail/G Suite/Mail/Outlook/etc are still good options for users who don’t want to make themselves make that mindset change.
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These big new email services are getting some hard looks. I noticed that The Verge today posted a one-month review of Superhuman, and dinged it pretty hard
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Thanks for posting this for me, @bowline, I was just coming to the forum to share these updated thoughts!
I think you’re right for what may be the majority of users, but I can only speak for my own use case and re-iterate that it’s not been a positive change.
I suspect that the concept of inbox-as-task-list is incompatible with many people’s workflows because their email volume is so high that it feels like an insurmountable task. I used to be like this too so I absolutely understand and sympathize.
A while back I recognized that inbox zero was philosophically right for me, so I worked to minimize email load instead of trying to find ways to work around the volume. Not an easy or a quick process, but the end result of it is that I don’t struggle to keep on top of my inbox at all under normal circumstances, and I have the tools in place to help me deal with sudden influxes without becoming overwhelmed.
Hey therefore looks inherently stressful to me because I’m always confronted by piles of messages, sometimes of different statuses, and there’s no transparency into what state my email is in without looking at the app.
Anyway, it’s not my intention to criticize Hey for what it is. It’s delivering exactly what it claims to, which for the majority of its audience (judging by the Twitter commentary I’ve seen) is a transformative improvement over whatever they were using before. I applaud and celebrate that, and I may well pay them for that reason alone.
But I think it’s worth pointing out that for some of us with non-standard or non-troubled email workflows, Hey doesn’t necessarily represent an improvement. That’s what the trial is for! 
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Absolutely. I want Hey to succeed but not by forcing everyone to like it. I thought you were approaching it mindful of the tradeoffs you’d have to make. I do think making peace with the river of seen email could be a beneficial mindset change.
Also, after using it I’m more sold on the need for import, which you also mentioned. I suspect it’s just a temporarily missing feature they are trying to market around. I could see them manually doing imports for paid users via support sooner than building it into the interface. If I keep Hey I’ll be keeping Gmail for archive search unless I move those emails into something like DEVONThink.
Long time lurker, first time poster here…does anyone have a spare invite they don’t need?
Hey changed their policy and now provide a 14-day free trial that creates a random-email account to try the service simply by downloading the iOS app.
I’m happy to share one. PM me if still interested.
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That would be terrific, thank you very much. I don’t see a way to DM yet, maybe I need a higher post count first?
sent you a private message with the code.
if you didnt see it or cannot see it, email me on mc@merecivilian.com
This is probably the first new tool I want to use but have no need for. As a 26 year old whose job happens on Slack… I don’t really receive real emails. Most of my emails are automated from purchases, newsletters, or financial institutions. Definitely not worth $99/yr.
Still, wish I could use it just because it looks neat and I like the people behind it.
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I listened to their Twitch Q&A and it sounds like they heard feedback like @marius gave in their review about not wanting to see painful emails in Recently Seen and will be solving that. Pretty cool. However, they also reiterated that the point of Recently Seen is to force you to chill out about processing all your email. 
They also said they’ll be adding scheduled emails and a way to send emails from the same sender into different locations without making the Screener too complicated (they have antipathy towards Gmail-style filtering.) But again, reiterated that they want Hey to be different and they’ll be prioritizing some new kinds of email features over things that people miss from traditional email workflows.
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A Send later feature that works with aliases along with a share sheet? Okay, now I’m interested! 
“To say this is a glowing first impressions review would be an understatement — in just two short weeks, HEY has shown itself to be the most revolutionary app or service I’ve ever tried.”
https://thesweetsetup.com/hey-email-disrupted-my-email-workflow/
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I am going to run this for a personal account for the trial and see how it goes. One of the things that concerns me is that there have been a number of decent 3rd party email options over the years that eventually failed. When they fail, you just move to another service and continue. One of the different things with hey.com is the need to use their email addresses. If they fail, then the email address that your contacts have for you goes away. What are you doing in that regard ?
That’s like asking what happens if Gmail or Fastmail shuts down. You’d get a new email address. The risk is low, though. This company has a long track record of not shutting down services and they’ve made a really strong claim about keeping Hey going. They make a lot of money with Basecamp, so there isn’t financial risk.
https://basecamp.com/about/policies/until-the-end-of-the-internet
When custom domains ship later this year, this point will be moot anyway.
True. Although it’s funny how many people who were fine with Gmail.com when G Suite was available are suddenly concerned about that.
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