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by
Holly Stanley
December 4, 2023
· Updated on
July 15, 2025
It’s Monday 9 AM. You have a coffee in hand, ready to tackle the day. You open your laptop and bam! Your inbox looks like it threw a wild party over the weekend.
There you are, navigating the sea of emails, replying, deleting, flagging––the whole shebang. Before you know it, it's lunchtime, and you're wondering, ‘Where did half my day just go?’
Welcome to the world of email overload, where spending hours on emails feels like trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon.
But here's the kicker––email doesn't have to be the black hole of your workday. With a few smart strategies, you can turn the tide and have enough time left for your most important tasks.
In this article, we’ll share how you can reclaim your time from the clutches of the relentless inbox.
The average time to write an email is around five minutes. This time depends on factors including the email's complexity and the writer's skill. The purpose of the email, the need for research, and the level of detail required also influence the time taken.
Research by OnePoll and Slack shows that the average employee drafts an average of 112 emails a week, spending just over five-and-a-half minutes on each. That amounts to around eleven hours a week writing work emails.
The average person spends just under two hours per day checking and responding to emails. That's a big chunk of the workday. It's surprising how quickly those quick email checks add up, turning into a significant part of our daily routine.
According to a study from Microsoft, office workers can spend up to 8.8 hours a week on email, or just under two hours per day. Imagine two hours––that's like watching a movie or cooking a fancy dinner! And it's not just typing out responses; it involves sorting through the inbox, reading through email threads, and sometimes, getting lost in the email rabbit hole. This number can even shoot up for those in roles heavy on communication or management.
Ever wondered why some long emails take just a minute to whip up, while other shorter emails have you staring at your screen for an eternity? It turns out, the time it takes to craft that perfect email isn't just about your typing speed or email length.
From the complexity of your message to who's on the receiving end, a variety of elements come into play:
The secret to breaking free from the endless cycle of send and receive lies in a few clever strategies. You need to work smarter, not harder when managing your digital correspondence.
Here are six tips to make email work for you, not against you.
Ah, the ping of an inbox notification––it’s irresistible. But you don't have to be at its beck and call. Imagine if you checked your mailbox on the street every five minutes; it would be excessive, but that's what constant email checking is like.
So here's what I do:
I set specific times for diving into my emails. Once in the morning, post-lunch, and an hour before I call it a day. It's like having appointments with my inbox.
This way, I'm not a slave to every ‘ping’ and can focus on my work.
As a result, my productivity shot up, and the world didn't end because I didn't reply to an email in nanoseconds. So give it a try––schedule mini-email dates, and you may find yourself getting more done (and maybe even enjoying a peaceful coffee without the constant pings).
Have you ever felt like you're typing the same email for the millionth time? It's like déjà vu but with your keyboard. My lifesavers are templates and canned responses. I used to spend ages crafting responses to the usual ‘Can you send me the report?’ or ‘What's the status of our project?’
Then, a friend introduced me to the magic of email templates. It was like finding a secret shortcut in a maze. Now, I have several pre-written responses for these common queries. It's like having a personal assistant who knows exactly what to say. Just a couple of clicks, and voilà, the email is done.
Insert a response by typing the # character anywhere in the draft.
Ever feel like every email is shouting ‘urgent’ at you? I used to think the same until I realized it's all about prioritizing. Not all emails are born equal.
Sorting emails is similar to creating a VIP list for a party. The high-priority ones–– urgent client queries – they're on the A-list and get the first pass. The less critical messages, like email newsletters and FYI emails, they're like party crashers; they can wait. This way, I tackle the urgent messages first and don't get bogged down by the small fry.
My email secret weapons are tools and extensions. I used to think I could manage my inbox with sheer willpower. Spoiler alert: I couldn't. But then, I discovered these little helpers.
Take the Missive app, for instance. It's like having a super assistant for your email. You can snooze emails (so they pop back up when you're ready to deal with them), block read trackers, create and save canned responses, and even collaborate with your team in the app. It's like turning your inbox into mission control.
Need more convincing? Sarah Hum, the co-founder of the feedback management tool Canny, says:
Missive helps our team make sure emails are handled quickly and effortlessly.
AI integrations can be a game changer in improving your email workflow. The AI understands the context of your conversation and suggests relevant replies, making you an email speed demon.
Translating emails can feel like a chore. Well, not anymore. Missive's AI integration can translate messages, so you're basically a multilingual wizard now without the hassle of toggling between email and translation apps.
The best part is it’s customizable. You can use the ‘Prompt’ feature to guide the AI, making your emails spot-on every time. Plus, setting it up is a breeze––just get an OpenAI account, generate an API key, and you're set to integrate AI into your Missive experience.
You can save your most-used prompts, making repetitive tasks a walk in the park. So, whether it's fixing grammar, changing the tone, or even translating––it's all at your fingertips. The AI assistant can also craft custom email replies automatically based on your saved canned responses.
Ever felt like you're on a never-ending scavenger hunt trying to find that one important email buried under a mountain of others? Well, filters and folders are your treasure map. I started using them, and it's like night and day. Setting up filters is like having a personal assistant who knows exactly where everything should go.
I remember the time I was looking for an urgent contract email amidst a sea of newsletters. I was searching for the word ‘contract’ in the subject line, and it was like finding a needle in a haystack. But then, I created a ‘Contracts’ folder and set up a filter to send all contract-related emails there. The next time I needed one, it was right there waiting for me, no digging required.
Labels are similar to post-it notes for your emails. Label it, and you'll find it in a second.
Taming your inbox isn’t a pipe dream, it’s totally doable. With the right tools and know-how, incoming emails won’t take over your workday. It’s simply a case of setting dedicated times for email checks, using AI-powered email tools, and creating an organized filters and labels system.
So don’t be another employee slogging through 2 hours of daily inbox management. Instead, take advantage of an email tool and optimize your inbox management using the strategies we explored. You’ll then have more time for your most important tasks.
July 24, 2025
6 Fyxer AI Alternatives: From email clients to add-on tools
We cover Fyxer AI’s key features and compare them to alternatives like Gmelius and Missive, helping you choose the best tool for your inbox.
As AI continues to grow in popularity, email management is one of the most competitive spaces for AI tools. Fyxer AI has gained a lot of attention, promising to save you one hour a day as your AI assistant dedicated to meeting and email management.
This article will break down what Fyxer AI is and some alternatives that exist in the market.
Fyxer AI is an AI assistant that connects to your Gmail or Outlook inbox. It does three things well:
It genuinely feels like a capable assistant that manages your email directly within your existing Gmail/Outlook inbox. There's no new interface to learn, no complex installation. Just an organized "person" who opened your messy inbox and took over, in a way that still granted you control over what's sent out.
Within 10 minutes of setting up Fyxer AI, all my emails were auto-tagged into one of their default labels (I use Gmail):
To enable auto-drafting of replies, you have to give Fyxer AI's draft prompter a bit of context related to your tone and business.
And here's what an auto-drafted reply looked like:
This is a great experience for anyone who wants to stay in the Gmail or Outlook interface, but really need on-going organization and administrative help because of the high volume of emails that they handle personally.
Like Superhuman, Fyxer AI is focused on inbox throughput—how much faster can you process your emails. Although that's an important goal, often times, it's the wrong goal.
Maybe the question is whether you should be replying to most of those emails in the first place, which we'll get into for some of the Fyxer alternatives.
When looking at Fyxer AI alternatives, we included 3 types:
We'll start with similar functionality and interface and work our way down the list.
Like Fyxer, Gmelius exists on top of your existing Gmail interface so you have a familiar experience with new functionality.
Gmelius also has an AI-powered assistant that auto-categorizes and can draft replies on your behalf. There are small details between the two options, for example:
On the other hand, Gmelius is also a collaboration focused tool instead of a purely productivity focused tool like Fyxer, which means Gmelius has more functionality for teams that work together within an inbox. They have the ability to chat internally on emails, assign emails to others, create automations that run based on certain AI tagging, SLA escalation, and more.
Both Gmelius and Fyxer have a closed AI assistant, meaning you're not able to bring your own AI key and select the models that you work with. This is great for those who don't really have a preference on which AI model they prefer.
From a pricing perspective, Gmelius is a little bit more expensive than Fyxer:
If you're looking for a Fyxer alternative that is a little more oriented to teams but has much of the same functionality and interface, then Gmelius might be the one.
Similar to Gmelius, Hiver integrates directly into your existing email client, giving you a familiar interface to work with. Unlike Gmelius, Hiver supports Gmail and Outlook accounts.
Like Fyxer, Hiver has an AI-powered email assistant that can help you auto-draft emails and auto-label emails based on their contents. Though, like Gmelius, it's not quite as simple as Fyxer's default experience since Hiver's core users are customer support teams working out of shared inboxes.
If you're an executive that's just looking to replace Fyxer's lightweight functionality, without any of the team related features like collaboration, automated workflows, analytics, or SLA monitoring, then Hiver might be a little overkill.
Could you get it to work? Absolutely. Will it feel like it was built for your use case? Probably not.
From a pricing perspective, Hiver's plans that include AI start at $19/user/month billed annually. However, there are limitations on how many AI-drafted replies you can have (20/user/day).
Now we're moving onto tools with more functionality than Fyxer, but will also have a less familiar interface.
Missive is an email client for teams that need to collaborate in their inbox. Like Fyxer, you can create AI-powered email assistants that help you triage, label, and draft replies. Unlike Fyxer, Missive is way more flexible in implementation, which depending on who you are, could be a good or bad thing.
Missive allows you to bring your own AI key and choose your own model. That means if you want to use a specific model for drafting emails versus triaging, you can fine tune that experience.
Since Missive is a collaborative inbox meant for your whole team, your AI assistant can assign and triage emails to the right people, instead of just sorting it in your own inbox. Imagine an old client emails you because you have a long standing relationship, but it's a question meant for your support team.
The same is true for drafting replies, instead of just drafting replies based on your own personal inbox, Missive's AI automations can help your whole team auto-draft replies to customers.
That's critical if you're handling hundreds if not thousands of emails every day. You can get the most common questions taken care of by an AI assistant.
Where Missive lacks compared to Fxyer is it's scheduling and calendar functionality. Missive has a calendar that's good for team visibility but it's lacking any AI assistant features.
From a pricing perspective, Missive is comparable to Fyxer at $24/user/month for plans that include AI automations.
If you're looking for an AI-powered email client, essentially Fyxer but with more features, then Shortwave might be a good fit.
Shortwave has all of Fyxer's AI assistant features right out of the box—auto-drafting emails, default AI categorization, calendar scheduling—and they have some team collaboration features as well.
Since Shortwave is it's own email client, it looks and feels quite different from Gmail and Outlook. It also only supports Gmail accounts. They say there's a workaround for Microsoft 365, Outlook and other email providers, but it's essentially forwarding your email account to a Gmail account, to connect to Shortwave.
If you don't want or need the level of customization and flexibility that Missive has, you don't care to BYOK (Bring your own keys), and you use Gmail/Google Workspace—Shortwave could be a good Fyxer alternative for you.
From a pricing perspective, Shortwave is the exact same pricing as Missive at $24/user/month for plans with full fledge AI functionality.
If you mostly loved Fyxer for it's ability to sort and organize emails, there are AI-powered tools like Clean Email that focus exclusively on that. And for your drafting needs, you can use Copilot or Gemini (depending on if you're a Gmail or Outlook user) as your AI assistant to help draft the occasional email.
Like Fyxer, Clean Email is a tool that works within your existing email client. It has some predetermined categories that it will suggest and label your emails as, and it can learn your preferences over time.
Copilot is a general AI-assistant that comes free with the Microsoft suite. You can use simple prompts like: Check for typos and make it more professional.
Or more complex prompts like:
You're an executive assistant replying to emails on my behalf. Make sure to take into consideration the existing tone of the conversation and match it. If it's a customer or prospective client asking about a specific product question, use https://learn.missiveapp.com/ to find the answer. Do not make up any information.
From a pricing perspective, Clean Email is $9.99/month/email account and Copilot has a free plan typically included in your Microsoft 365 subscription, with Pro plans starting at $30/user/month.
An alternative to Clean Email and Copilot would be SaneBox and Gemini. Incredibly similar functionality and features, with minor differences around user interface. Gemini would also be a better fit for anyone already in the Gmail/Google Workspace ecosystem.
Where SaneBox stands out in comparison to both Clean Email and Fyxer is it's third party integrations. By offering connections to other popular tools like ToDoist, SaneBox allows you to create basic automated workflows within your inbox. Something in between Missive's super flexible and powerful automations and Fyxer's one and only integration to HubSpot.
From a pricing perspective, SaneBox starts at $7/user/month with some usage limits. Google's Gemini has a free option, with paid plans starting at $19.99/month
Fyxer AI offers a compelling solution for tackling email management, seamlessly integrating with your Gmail or Outlook to help you regain valuable time. Its strengths in triaging emails, drafting replies, and note-taking make it a strong contender in today’s crowded AI productivity tool landscape.
However, it’s worth considering various alternatives like Gmelius, Missive, or Shortwave, each bringing unique features and interfaces that could better align with your specific needs.
As AI productivity tools continue to innovate and redefine how we interact with our inboxes, exploring your options will ensure you find the perfect fit to enhance your productivity.
March 25, 2025
Outlook vs Gmail for Business: Which is better?
Welcome to the great business email debate—Gmail or Outlook?
Welcome to the great business email debate—Gmail or Outlook?
Emails are the lifeblood of many businesses. They’re how people inquire about your services, it's how you communicate with clients and vendors, and maybe it's even how you communicate internally with your team.
We'll be doing an in-depth analysis of the two big email providers (Gmail vs Outlook). And give you the information you need to make a decision on which email service you'd like to build your communication system from.
We'll be going over:
There are two ways to create an email with Google.
You can either have a free, personal email address that ends in @gmail.com, with limited storage (15gb across your Google Suite), or you can pay for Google Workspace (Gmail for business) and create an email address with your business domain: @yourcompany.com, have more storage, and more admin/security controls over your email service.
The Google Workspace business plans vary:
Whether you have a Gmail account or a Google Workspace account, your inbox will look similar.
This is where Google shines. Their real-time collaborative documents were a game changer when they launched back in 2006 and has become the preferred tools for many organizations since.
When looking at Gmail's security measures for Google Workspace accounts, here are two that stand out:
Gmail uses TLS for email transit and has encryption at rest and in transit.
With over 1.8 billion Gmail users worldwide, there are some very well known issues and tradeoffs within the Gmail's functionality. Here are three common ones:
Like Gmail, Outlook is Microsoft's free, personal email service; Microsoft 365 is essentially Outlook for business, equivalent to Google Workspace.
Here's an overview of the Microsoft 365 plans (assuming an annual payment, as of April 1, 2025):
With thousands of enterprise customers, Outlook's security and privacy are tuned for those standards.
And just like Gmail, Outlook uses TLS encryption for email in transit. And data at rest is also encrypted.
As with most decisions in life, it depends.
Google Workspace is collaborative at its core, though its shared inbox and email automation options are more limited.
Microsoft Outlook is more robust in it's DNA overall, but can feel overly complex and lacking in modern design.
If your business prioritizes simplicity and collaboration with clients, team members, and vendors—I would err on the side of Gmail and Google Workspace.
If you work in a field with a lot of sensitive information (i.e. law, accounting, etc), then I would err on the side of Outlook and their very high standard for security controls.
Whether you choose Gmail or Outlook, there are some business email hygiene factors to follow:
Neither Outlook or Gmail was really designed for teams. They added on some lightweight features (shared mailboxes), but if you truly live in your inbox everyday, replying to clients, team members, and vendors—you'll want something designed specifically for team collaboration and shared inboxes.
That would be us—Missive!
Missive is an email client that sits on top of your chosen email service—whether that's Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo Mail, or Apple Mail.
It has all the features that are loved in Gmail and Outlook—labels, rules, snoozing, but supercharged with more functionality. Including AI powered rules that allow for auto-translation, auto-labeling, and so much more.
But don't just take our word for it, here's Arif, a lawyer and long time Outlook user, who recently signed up for Missive:
When I open Missive, I can hit Inbox Zero quickly. I never had that feeling with Outlook.
And here's Pat, a property manager and Gmail user, who recently signed up for Missive:
We’ve tried so many shared inbox solutions. Missive was unexpectedly powerful. Suddenly, we weren’t scrambling over lost emails or letting days slip by.
So whether you're Team Gmail for business or Team Outlook for business—you can try Missive today and get the best collaborative email client for businesses.