Wow! That does seem like a super odd bug. I hope they fix it for you soon.
Which bring another good point – HEY is super new and, while it’s been under development for a long time, there’s certainly still some things they are working on. It’s not 100% polished yet (or even public, right?)
For now, I am just forwarding my gmail into HEY and processing it there, so basically, I do have a backup if anything goes wrong.
Sorry, forgot a key word (111 or more, not only 111.) I think it would happen to anyone in a busy reply all thread, but I realize it’s not common. Yes, definitely mindful it’s early access. I’m also forwarding from Gmail.
The review is really a defense of email as it is today and the workflows that go with it (Archive folders, rules Sent folder, etc.). I have to use that at work and I’ve also had to use it at home. If you listen to the CEO’s 35-minute or so explanation of how Hey works, though, almost everything he said as bad in email is exactly what I find bad in email.
What I find extremely appealing in Hey is:
So, I buy the workflow. If you don’t buy the workflow, then Hey won’t be for you. But if you want to try a different way of processing email, Hey could be for you.
Now, having said all that, I have my own domain for email and I’m not giving Fastmail up until I see how that works in Hey. I agree, not being able to import current email is important and missing. Since we’re forwarding, we don’t know how Spam works. I’ve sent emails from Hey, but only so I could look at how it shows up in other clients; I’m still sending out of Fastmail since, as Hey notes, we have a lot invested in our email addresses and those of us who have domains are not giving those up. Yes, we lose the availability of multiple clients, but that’s because of the workflow, so buy the workflow or don’t use Hey.
And, this is still in Beta. Lots more to come. I’m impressed with the workflow and the ownership and will continue to use it until I see how using your own domain works. Until then, I’ll use Hey for the workflow. And the Basecamp folks aren’t a bad group to hang your hat on; they think through how things work really well and build that into their software.
Although support hasn’t responded to me yet after an initial clarification question, they stealth pushed a fix for that thread reading issue and are now returning every email in the thread when you ask to “show way earlier” instead of capping at 100, so every new email can now be read. That’s good enough for me! The availability and quality of Basecamp’s support team is a big positive for Hey, especially when compared to Google.
SENT MAIL
Use the view of you to see all the emails you’ve responded to:
A quick work around for those who like Heys approach,
Archive folder
Use everything:
I’ll read your article, I’m struggling as I have a custom domain. I think I’m going to keep it and drop sanebox (same cost).
I think you might have missed that the imbox is just new stuff. Once read or processed they move down to recently seen. The imbox is where action is required. Recently seen is there for reference (a partially visible archive folder that ages out over time).
But reading your article I completely agree. For those who are tech savvy enough to have bought a custom domain, set up Gmail filters (as similar), and aren’t drowning in email Hey.com isn’t really needed.
I’m torn - but bored of traditional email. So will be switching.
Along with tracking pixels you missed the other game changer:
Files view
Lots of mail reinvention going on. This morning I received an email from Mail Pilot announcing that they’re sending out invites soon (an email to let me know I might get an invite?) to an updated version of the app. The email contained a link to this new video showing off the ‘batch list’ feature:
I get the fact that nobody likes spam. But as someone who does email marketing for my photography business, I don’t like the blocking pixel tracking. Some emailers are bad actors but that’s not me and its really helpful to know if you opened an email.
Hi @peedy,
I think this is Hey’s point. You as the sender want. Me as a receiver doesn’t want anyone to know what I do, or do not do, in my inbox. No one should be able to force their privacy philosophy on others. If your email has good content in it I’ll read it. Make it good and don’t worry what people do with it.
‘As a private investigator I don’t like people having their blinds closed in their homes. Some people looking into your homes are perverts but that’s not me.’ 
I’m sorry but the wishes of marketing people are none of my concern, in the same way that I block ALL robocallers.
Though @peedy used the term marketing, what he described does not make him a “marketing people.” He is trying to promote his business. That is the conundrum. None of us like getting solicited for products and services we are not interest in and yet business owners need to be able to advertise, market, and sell their products and services. I have not tried Hey (I’m not paying $100/year for an email service when I have and will continue to setup robust cloud-based email rules and filters) but from what I’ve read, Hey is attempting to initially filter emails so that the recipient can determine (thumbs up/thumbs down) what to let through going forward and what to block permanently. That seems like a reasonable compromise. It gives business owners an opportunity to tell us about their products and services once and gives us the opportunity to continue receiving the information or to block it.
I get your point, but peedy complained that
which is a bit more “intrusive”, and has little to do with getting your (business owner) message to the potential customer
I’m trialing Hey too and still just using forwarding from my normal account for now, but I have to say I am really loving this new way of doing things and the simplicity of it all. I guess it all depends on your workflows and who your primary people are that you email with. I have many emails coming in which are rambling and multiple threads combined and quite honestly so messy that it’s hard to write rules that can sort them - the ability to rename threads from my end will be so helpful and I like that I am choosing where things go myself. It’s early days, and although I’ve replicated some of the functions using Sanebox and hacks in the past, I just like this out of the box. I totally get that it won’t be for everyone though - and so do they from a podcast I heard at least. That initial filter where you can decide whether to not to 'let someone into the 'imbox (groan!) is a game changer - it’s making me take a pause and do a lot of unsubscribing in a way that I’ve never felt motivated enough to do in my usual email workflow. Custom domains are on the roadmap and that will make a difference to me but for now , I’m open minded and keeping testing. So helpful hearing all the critiques so I can work out which ones make a difference to me - brilliant thread.Thanks everyone.
I’m in the same boat as Peedy, work-wise. We do tracking with Mandrill, Hubspot and Mailchimp quite a bit. At the same time, I like the Hey feature for myself and block ads and trackers on all my browsers. My hope is that as data science advances, marketers will gain insight into campaign effectiveness without needing this information. Tracking an individual’s behavior (“saw you opened this email!”) should just go away unless the user clicked a button or filled out a form.
One way to look at all this tracking is that companies use to get better at predicting user behavior. Maybe this is naive, but what if we used all that energy (computational and human) to get better at making better products?
To me it looks a whole lot like MailPilot after. It’s recent relaunch. Anyone agree?
I could agree in a broader scope, for marketing email the only product tracking could make better are marketing emails, at the cost of people’s privacy.
In principle any kind of tracking should be based on user consent. Which is not the case, sadly.
I noticed there’s a sent email view in Hey now, with a small twist in that some of your recently sent attachments are shown first, and then the list of emails.
