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New features in v3.4.1

• New option to auto-complete emoji with “::” [open pref] — I used double colon instead of single to reduce false positives so I can enable this by default along. It also ships with a second option to make emoji on their own line larger when inserted via auto-complete [open pref]:

• New option to put attachments above message body [open pref]

• New option to hide non-attachments (links that Gmail shows as attachments like Google Drive and YouTube) [open pref]

• New option to hide AI Search Overview [open pref]

• New option to show list of attachments in 3-line vertical reading pane layout [open pref]

Improvements

• Moved all Gemini-related preferences to one place [open prefs]

• Improve how/when I hide Gemini message card buttons (e.g., Add to Calendar, Summarize message, etc) – I will improve this further in the next update

• Hide the new Workspace Upgrade button (shown in top right corner next to profile photo)

• A lot of small improvements to reverse order conversation view (put replies above messages and make sure it works when you pop out a conversation)

• Hide Send+Archive button on reminders and change Schedule Send to “Remind me later”

• Hide the Calendar icon status icon instead of trying to position it and improve the positioning of the status icon

• Minor performance improvement for keyboard shortcuts

• Use attr() css attribute in Chrome (other browsers don’t support this yet and I still have to have an explicit rule for every possible size)

• Wrap around ` keyboard shortcut so focus can go between the last and first section when I reach the end

• Update how I scroll to a focused message to make it more performant and reliable

Fixes

• Fix ESC key to close message by making sure any found alerts are actually visible (as I exit early if there is an open alert or menu)

• Fix i, the intro keyboard shortcut (Gmail update broke it)

• Fix back button in search (Gmail added a Gemini-decorated search icon)

• Fix storage full banner (it was being compressed to 0px wide and pushing the inbox down

• Fix issue with inline reminders not being visible when the first message is collapsed

• Hide the suggested reply badge in vertical reading pane too (when the pref is enabled)

• Set a minimum size of 500px when you click on a profile photo in conversation view to see it larger (Gmail made many of the profile photos smaller)

• Fix to fully hide the background gradient on gemini compose suggestions when Simplify prefs is enabled

• Fix for Toggle Dark mode shortcut not always working

• Fix minimizing the ‘Share in chat’ button and make sure the “show all” message actions button goes after the last reply/fwd button

• Only round message border radius in list view on default and dark theme

A lot has happened in the last three years

Simplify Gmail turned 6 years old on April 2nd, 2025. I am proud of keeping Simplify working through Gmail changes big and small. In the last 3 years, I’ve pushed 159 updates, replied to over 5,000 support emails, and closed over 730 issue reports.

Simplify Gmail v3 launched in January 2024. It was a massive upgrade that I started working on in late 2021. It brought a ton of new features including bundles, reminders, message bookmarks, saved searches, inbox pausing, auto BCC rules, auto dark mode, inbox avatars, date group actions, new custom inbox zero backgrounds, new custom fonts, a new experience for Simplify preferences, and lots more. I made a video overview of what was new in v3 when it launched which I’m sure most of you have already seen.

Simplify Gmail v3.2 adds even more. The last 18 months has mostly been focused on refining and improving v3 and has included improvements to overall performance, improvements to Gmail’s filters UI (making it a sortable table), adding reminder inside conversations, support for Gmail’s new subscription center, options to suppress or hide Gemini features, big improvements to the auto BCC feature, and hundreds of small improvements.

Last summer, I worked with my son, Owen, to rebuild the Simplify website and add new capabilities to how plans work and are managed.

New domain plan: You can now sign up your entire team with just your domain(s). This is a great solution for organizations of any size as it is

1. cheaper because it is billed on a per-email instead of per-person basis and

2. easier to manage as access is automatically granted to anyone who installs Simplify and uses it on an email account under one of your domain(s).

Anyone can manage the plan now: It used to be only the plan manager could manage the plan and only with the email address they originally signed up for Simplify with.

• Now anyone on a group plan can sign into the Simplify Plan Manager to manage their email addresses for their seat on the plan (only the plan manager can mange billing or cancel the plan).

• And the plan manager can sign in and manage the plan with any of the email addresses they have added to their own seat. Goodbye losing access to your Simplify plan when you lose access to just one of your email accounts.

2025 roadmap

Syncing Simplify preferences: I'm in the process of overhauling how Simplify preferences are structured and stored so I can build support for exporting, importing, and syncing across browsers and devices via Simplify's servers. This should be the next big thing I launch.

Command menu: I've long been a fan of Superhuman's ⌘K menu and hope to finally add that to Simplify Gmail this year.

Internationalization: I've had some people offer to help with this and I’m excited to make Simplify work better for people that don't speak english. 

Documentation and promotion: I need to do a better job documenting new features, writing help content for them, and promoting them. But I want to avoid adding annoying notifications inside Gmail so I would rather it be on my website & newsletter. I also would really like to build a referral system to reward people who spread the word.

And much more: Beyond the above, there are a bunch of smaller things (based on user requests and my whims), continued improvements of what is already there, and some big ideas for new things. I can easily see another 6 years of work ahead of me and I’m grateful for everyone who supports the work.

Over the last year, I’ve been busy. I updated Simplify Gmail 38 times with hundreds of improvements and fixes to make Simplify even better and keep up with changes to Gmail. I’ve listed some of the bigger improvements at the end of this email.

I’ve also spent much of the last year working on Simplify v3 which is nearing full release and will include:

• Bundles (early demo, some early press); this was the most requested feature

• Bulk actions on date groups and bundles

• Profile photos in the inbox

• Total revamp of Simplify settings with option to sync across devices*

• Press [ i ] to reply to an introduction

• Better support content and onboarding*

• And so much more!

While anyone can use the v3 beta, not all of the above features(*) are in the beta and there are still a few rough edges and missing details. So not quite ready for primetime, but it’s getting close!

Later this summer, I plan to launch Simplify v3 to everyone. And as that launch nears, the newsletter will become active once again with more details on the bigger changes.

Back to the Simplify v2 you all know and love – here are some of the many improvements and new capabilities added over the last year:

• Support for Gmail’s new design (video tour)

• Play video attachments inside Gmail without having to download the file

• Blocking over 260 trackers now (up from 170 when Simplify v2 first launched)

• Hide Inbox for deep focus with option to temporarily disable notifications

• Option to reverse the order of messages in a conversation or a list

• Improved support for Gmail as a Progressive Web App

• Compatibility with more extensions (up to 32 now)

• New keyboard shortcuts:

  • Unarchive a thread with Shift+E

  • Select or unselect a single thread with Spacebar

  • Select multiple messages with Shift+Up / Down

  • Print a conversation with Ctrl+P / Cmd+P

• Option to keep the compose button at the top of the nav

• Improvements to dark mode

• Option to customize the favicon color for different accounts

• Highlight the drop target in compose to attach an image (instead of inserting it into the body)

• Option to make links https by default when linkifying a domain

• Don’t auto-expand messages that match a search if the only match is in the quoted text

• Option to suppress the external recipient warning in Workspace accounts

• Fixing some lingering Gmail bugs like removing problematic invisible styling when you copy and paste content from Google Docs to Gmail.

• And so much more…

One more thing: In addition to a dedicated Twitter account (@useSimplify) where I have been posting more frequent updates, I started a YouTube channel where I am posting support content and tours of new features.

I just uploaded an excessively long video walking through all of Simplify’s options (seriously, this thing is feature film length… bring popcorn and a caffeinated beverage… or better yet, use the timestamp list in the description to jump to the options you are interested in).

As always, feel free to pass this on to others (you know all your contacts want a laundry list of features on your favorite browser extension) or better yet, tell me what’s on your mind in the comments or over email at hi@simpl.fyi. Onward!

I’ve tried to keep the price as low as possible to maximize the affordability of Simplify. Keep in mind that fees and taxes eat up nearly half of a monthly payment and over a third of an annual payment.

But some still believe I am price gouging.

I’ve tried to explain why a paid plan and not a one-time fee is the right pricing model for Simplify but I’ve always glossed over the details afraid to bore you to death. This post is going to dive into those details.

Simplify is much more than “Just an extension that makes Gmail look prettier”

Setting aside that Simplify does a lot more than “make Gmail look prettier,” I have sympathy for those who ask why a paid plan is needed instead of a one-time fee. 

Simplify is “just” a browser extension, right? How much ongoing work could it really need?

And Gmail seems like a simple product with only a few views (list view, message view, compose, and settings) and some app chrome & functionality (action bar, navigation, search, chat, add-ons, menus, banners, alerts, and overlays). 

The challenges are (1) Gmail is always changing and (2) these views and areas of Gmail are different depending on your Gmail settings and other variables. Sometimes the differences are visible to the user and sometimes they are invisible differences in the code that Simplify builds on.

Over 100,000 unique Gmail setups...

Each of the Gmail settings and user setups below acts as a multiplier on the number of unique Gmail setups that Simplify needs to support:

• Inbox types: 5x (default inbox w/ tabs, default inbox without tabs, multiple inbox vertical, multiple inbox horizontal, and priority inbox)

• Theme types: 5x (default theme, dark theme, high contrast theme, and color/image themes with either a dark or light interface)

• Reading pane options: 4x (Vertical split, Horizontal split, No split, and Disabled)

• Nav open/closed: 2x

• Add-ons open/closed: 2x

• Right side chat on/off: 2x

• Quick settings open/closed: 2x

• Text buttons vs icon buttons: 2x

• Chat mode: 3x (Hangouts, Google Chat, or disabled)

• Screen resolution ranges: 4x (< 1200px wide, 1200-1440px, 1440-1600px, and >1600px); Not included are (a) screen height (impacts things like the width of compose moles) and (b) the browser zoom level, which can cause numerous issues as well.

• Browsers: 3x (Firefox, Safari, and all Chrome-based browsers)

This adds up to 115,200 unique setups!! But that’s not all. Not even close.

Ok, so actually, BILLIONS of unique Gmail setups...

There are other settings, setups, and ways to change how Gmail looks and works, bringing the number of unique setups into the billions.

• Workspace Accounts differ in design and functionality from @gmail consumer accounts. For instance, currently, Rooms is a feature only available to Workspace and it changes how the Nav is coded. Workspace Accounts have a company logo next to the profile image and warnings about emailing people outside your domain. The upcoming design update is also rolling out to some Workspace accounts first.

• Other extensions and add-ons can dramatically change Gmail in many ways (Simplify plays nicely with and sometimes even improves over 30 other Gmail extensions and add-ons)

• Simplify itself adds over 40 options. I resisted adding any options for a long time but eventually decided it was unavoidable.

• Language can change things too. And there are actually two ways to set the language: (1) the OS language setting and (2) Gmail's own language setting which supports 73 languages. These have implications for things like date grouping, fonts, availability of certain features and options like right-to-left language toggle in compose, how much space is needed for various elements, and more).

• Compose can be an inline reply, compose mole (mini window in the bottom right corner), full screen, or popped out into a separate browser tab. And messages can be inline, popped out, or shown in a print view. The code around these elements change in each mode.

• Enabling offline adds buttons and changes how some things work.

• Browser alternatives like Shift, Mailplane, and Flotato work differently as they don't truly support extensions, and instead just inject Simplify's code into Gmail manually. They also sometimes run on older versions of the browser which has made for some very interesting bugs. And Gmail installed as a PWA (Progressive Web App) changes a number of things with theming.

• And then there are delegate accounts, vacation auto-responders, email signatures, attachment previews, and on and on... 

Exhausted just by reading this list?

I feel you. Imagine what it’s like to support all these permutations. Taking into account just the items listed, our 115,200 unique setups easily jumps into the billions.

But wait, there’s more. On top of all that, there is the fact that email is inherently a container for other people's code (rich HTML emails). Anything Simplify does to messages or compose (maximum width, dark mode, font settings, etc) has to be careful not to break the messages themselves. I’ve even built fixes for several obscure Gmail bugs around rich HTML emails.

So, how do you support billions of unique setups?

Disclaimer: Feel free to skip this section as this gets technical.

Here is the current state of the evolving system I’ve built up over the last 2.5 years to support all combinations of Gmail settings and user setups.

• For starters, you build something and see where it breaks over time. The first version of Simplify launched in April 2019. It was based on an extension I had built and maintained over the years for just me and a few friends. The rest of 2019 was scaling up to support the many features and options I didn’t support at launch as well as keeping up with Gmail’s ever-changing code base. 

• Then in May 2020, I took all I had learned and started rebuilding Simplify from scratch, to force myself to retest everything and look for better ways to detect, understand, and modify Gmail. This took ~9 months and launched in February 2021. 

• I’ve mapped over 650 obscure CSS selectors to elements along with where they sit in the DOM (Gmail’s code) and how they work. For example, .G6 is the container for the search filter chips while .g6 (lowercase “g”) is the container for a message snippet in message view. The search chips (.G6) are directly under the list container (.BltHke) when Reading Pane is off, but are inside the the action bar container (.G-atb) when Reading Pane is on. There are hundreds if not thousands of these tiny differences. Simplify currently has over 7,000 lines of CSS to consider all these things… but the challenge of figuring out all these things is hard to measure by number of lines of code. Sometimes, 100 lines only took a day. Other times, it takes a week to write a single line.

• To make use of these mappings, I use SCSS which lets me use variables for CSS selectors. Currently I compile the SCSS into CSS before I ship each update to the extension, but I have been working towards a version where I ship the SCSS with the extension. Then, the extension downloads and caches the variables separately as a JSON file. Then the extension compiles and injects the CSS when you load Gmail. To do that, I ended up needing to write my own SCSS parser which I will eventually open source. This will let me change the CSS selectors safely, securely, and instantly without everyone waiting for an update to the extension when Gmail’s DOM or code changes.

• But some selectors change too often and are not uniform across customers. For those, Simplify takes stable selectors and walks the DOM to add stable selectors to those elements. It took some time to figure out which selectors were stable and which ones change regularly.

• Beyond the CSS, I’ve built out models for how Gmail functions so I can detect your setup as well as when things change. Some of these are easier than others. For instance, detecting that the theme changed was very difficult and requires I observe mutations to the css in a specific style tag. It took a long time to figure that out. Compose was also very challenging as contenteditable (the tech that Gmail uses) does many unexpected things. One example: hitting backspace at the start of a bullet to combine it with the previous bullet injects a bunch of inline styles on the merged bullet. There are over 8,000 lines of JavaScript right now but again, the number of lines of JS do not capture the complexity or challenge of the task.

From all of the above and my years working on Gmail, I've built up a spidey sense of what kinds of modifications might break different configurations. But I still miss things. To help catch issues before you see them, I always launch updates to the Canary version of Simplify first, which has ~400 lovely people who enjoy being the first to get updates and report issues when they see them. If all goes well, I launch to Firefox and 5% of Chrome users and wait a couple more days to see if anything comes up before launching the update to everyone.

Gmail’s always changing and we didn’t even cover everything

Another dimension to this whole puzzle is the fact that Gmail is continually changing. So even after I’ve figured something out, I often have to figure it out all over again months later by staring at the obfuscated code and reverse engineering how Gmail works now.

Building extensions for Gmail is so hard, in fact, that there is actually a 3rd party paid platform for building extensions for Gmail. I’m not aware of a platform like this for building extensions on any other product. A lot of extensions use this but it isn’t open source nor does it support the kind of modifications and enhancements Simplify makes.

And we didn’t even get into time spent on customer support or what it takes to do the many other things Simplify does like detect and customize inbox zero, support hiding the Inbox and disabling notifications, block over 250 email trackers, add Simplify’s many keyboard shortcuts, customize the interface font, and more.

It doesn’t matter how complex any of this is…

Beyond convincing you that I’m not some greedy jerk trying to take advantage of everyone, knowing how hard it is to build and maintain Simplify doesn’t really matter. 

At the end of the day, either you get enough value from the product that makes it worth paying for or you don’t. 

None of this post is to complain. I enjoy the complexity and challenge of Simplify. I just hope it helps explain how big a task building and maintaining Simplify is and why a one-time payment wouldn’t be sustainable. 

The good news is, for each negative review complaining about the pricing, I’ve gotten several lovely emails from people saying how happy they are to pay, knowing it means Simplify will continue to be well supported and maintained. I really appreciate those emails and I’m excited to focus my efforts on building a product for these people and anyone else that find Simplify worth paying for. Onward!

This is the culmination of over two years (and thousands of hours) of work, bringing countless modifications and new features to Gmail. The paid plan will ensure continued support, maintenance, and development.

Everyone gets a fresh two-week free trial: When Simplify updates, you will have 14 days to sign up before Simplify will stop working without a plan.

Pricing is per-person, not per-account: Some people have multiple devices and/or multiple email accounts, so I’m allowing unlimited devices and up to 10 email accounts for each person on a plan.

Your support means so much to me: For those that sign up, thank you! I will work hard to keep you as a happy customer. For those that do not sign up, I hope Simplify brought some peace to your inbox and that our paths cross again.

How did we get here? Why is Simplify no longer free?

If you are new to the newsletter or this is the first time you’re hearing about the paid plan, here are some posts that provide more context:

• The future of Simplify – our mission, focus, and point of view

• Choosing a business model for Simplify – why free doesn’t work and what can be done to keep Simplify alive

• Simplify v2: I’m listening – changes to the pricing model based on feedback

In short, moving to a paid model guarantees that Simplify...

• will be updated promptly to ensure it continues to work regardless of how Gmail changes (which happens regularly). 

• will include responsive support to any issues subscribers run into. I currently respond to almost all support requests within 24 hours, and usually within 2 hours.

• will continue to evolve and improve. I plan to launch Simplify for other products (likely starting with Chrome — more on that in a future post). But there’s also a lot more I want to do with Gmail. You can see a list of ideas and vote on what gets built next.

Feel free to reach out with questions or comments. You can drop a comment on any post, Tweet at me, or email me at hi@simpl.fyi.

What am I getting for my money?

Simplify is a browser extension for Gmail on desktop that boosts productivity, strengthens privacy, and reduces️ stress by:

• Making hundreds of improvements (small and large) to streamline, simplify, and enhance Gmail’s design and functionality. No part of Gmail is left untouched. Messages are easier to scan, read, and compose.

• Blocking over 250 email spy trackers (more than any other tracker blocker, including other Chrome extensions and even Hey.com which only blocks 49 spy trackers).

• Adding intuitive keyboard shortcuts. Navigate faster with your arrow keys, enter, and escape, and use familiar shortcuts like Ctrl-A to select all or Ctrl-Z to undo.

• Adding a full dark mode with options around compose and making no, some, or all messages dark.

• Providing over 40 options with great defaults so you can fine tune Simplify just the way you like. Options include changing the font size or family, hiding unread counts, making the interface even more minimal, and more.

• Well-built, well-supported: In addition to prompt updates and responsive support, Simplify is built with your privacy and security in mind, requiring the minimum permissions to do all of the above. This is in contrast to any third-party email app and most other Gmail extensions which require you to give full access to your email.

Simplify has come along way in the last two years. I hope you will join me on the next phase of our journey together.

Thank you for all the feedback on Simplify v2. I tried to reply to every message, comment, or report – if you didn’t hear back, please email me at hi@simpl.fyi or submit feedback here.

Status of updates: Since the launch, there have been five updates addressing your feedback and reports. We even found a bug in an upcoming version of Chrome itself! There is a big update in testing right now (v2.3), which should go out to everyone by the end of the week.

Updated pricing

Before we talk about what’s coming in the next update, let’s talk about pricing, which comprised a lot of the feedback and comments. 

The top three concerns were for the pricing to be:

1. Fair

2. Easy to understand

3. Flexible enough to support multiple ways of using Simplify

I hear you. Here’s how I am addressing your feedback:

• Per-account pricing is too expensive. Pricing is now per-person instead of per-account. Each person on a subscription gets 10 email accounts and you can contact me if you need more.

• Sliding-scale pricing is confusing. The price is now locked to $2/mo/person (paid annually) for an individual, and $1/mo/person for each additional person on a plan. Paying monthly costs a little more to cover the additional fees.

• Auto-renewing subscriptions feel like a trap. I can relate: subscriptions can feel like a treadmill you can’t ever get off. For Simplify, auto-renewal will be optional at sign-up for annual subscriptions, and I’ll be sure notifications go out before renewal for those who elect to keep it enabled.

• Keep it simple. I’ve scaled back the subscription to be only for Simplify Gmail. I will figure out how to integrate future products as options when they are ready.

• Can I get it for free? Maybe. I’m grateful that so many of you see Simplify as a service worth paying for. But some feel that the price is still too expensive. While I can’t please everyone, I have a couple ideas that might help. One is to reward those that spread the word about Simplify. I’d much rather pay you for successful referrals than pay Facebook to spam people with ads. I’ll explain more about how the referral system will work in the next newsletter.

Here is what the pricing page might look like with all these changes:

The next update (v2.3)

Beyond pricing, how is the actual product changing based on feedback and suggestions? Most of the updates thus far have been to fix bugs and visual oddities.

The next update starts adding new things:

• It’s safer! Simplify now blocks 170+ email trackers (more than I previously said)

• Improved support for the high contrast theme and the dark theme

• Improved compatibility with other extensions (esp. Copper and Hubspot)

• Improved performance and a lot of little improved design details

• And lots of new options!

Here are the options coming in the next update:

• Make the composer dark for the dark theme (on by default, but an option for those that prefer black text on a white background for compose)

• Customize the width of both the list and conversation view including the option to let it span the entire screen. I’ve long resisted this but a few people wrote with compelling use cases, like how they get a lot of email with large tables.

• Reverse the order of messages in a conversation. It’s a rare user who wants this, but after looking into it, I realized it wasn’t too hard to support.

• Disable hiding the pagination count until hover. You can opt to always show the count in the list view, message view, or both.

• Disable matching the font size of the body to the rest of the interface (increasing it from 13px to 14px). Some use other fonts where the increased size feels too large.

Phew! That’s a lot of options. And I’ve got three more in progress for v2.3.1.

With all these choices, Simplify options are now a laundry list of toggles. I know! This is not the ideal experience. I am redesigning the options interface in the near future to make it more visual and give you a preview of what each option does.

Get updates first: Introducing the Canary Channel

The v2.3 update will go out in the next couple days. If you use Chrome, Edge, or Brave and want to get these updates now (along with future updates before everyone else), you can switch to the new Canary Channel.

Here is how:

1. Join the Trusted Tester group: test.simpl.fyi

2. Disable Simplify under chrome://extensions (you do not want two versions of Simplify running)

3. Add Simplify Gmail Canary: canary.simpl.fyi (you have to be signed into the Chrome Web Store with same account from step 1)

4. Refresh Gmail

Simplify Gmail v2 also brings peace and enhanced productivity to the inbox. This comes from:

1. Grouping messages by date (with support for 31 languages)

2. Adding keyboard shortcuts to make getting around your inbox easier

3. Rewarding you for reaching inbox zero

4. And making many other small improvements with several new Simplify options so you can dial it in just how you want it

A calmer inbox

Every detail has been combed over to reduce the visual noise and clutter in the inbox. The result is an even more simple and peaceful experience than Simplify v1.

Default inbox with Simplify v2:

Vs without:

Reading pane with Simplify v2

Vs without:

Familiar keyboard shortcuts, enabled by default

Keyboard shortcuts can make you much more productive. And while Gmail has a lot of hidden keyboard shortcuts, they’re not the familiar ones most people are used to, and they’re not enabled by default.

Simplify v2 fixes both of these things while also making the “power user” even more productive.

First, Simplify adds familiar keyboard shortcuts for the most common actions:

• Enter drills in. Pressing it multiple times will open a message → focus the newest message → open a reply to that message. And when you are done, press ⌘Enter / Ctrl+Enter to send the message.

• Esc drills out. Pressing it multiple times will close a draft reply → close the message returning to the previous list → return to the inbox → return to the primary tab in the inbox (if you use the tabbed inbox).

• Backspace or Delete deletes the focused message.

• ↓/↑ move focus between older and newer messages in the inbox.

• ⌘R / Ctrl+R will refresh the list instead of all of Gmail. This even works in reading pane where there is no visible refresh button. Add a shift button to refresh Gmail.

• ⌘Z / Ctrl+Z will undo the last action.

• ⌘A / Ctrl+A will select all the messages in the current view.

• ⌘⇧A / Ctrl+Shift+A will select all the messages in the inbox, label, or search (going beyond what is on the current page)

• ⌥M / Alt+M will open / close the left nav menu. If opening, it will also put keyboard focus on the nav so you can use up/down and enter to go to a different label.

• ⌥S / Alt+S will toggle Simplify on/off

You can also disable any of these if they interfere with other shortcuts you already use.

Secondly, Simplify adds the option to use shortcuts without first selecting a message

If you have all of Gmail’s keyboard shortcuts enabled, you still can’t use them in the list view without first selecting a message (either with your mouse or with the “x” shortcut).

Simplify adds the option to auto select messages so you can simply press “e” to archive or Backspace to delete without first selecting the message.

A better reference overlay

Lastly, Gmail’s keyboard shortcut reference (accessed by pressing “?”) is quite the eyesore:

Simplify shows you all the new shortcuts and makes it easier to read this reference:

Hooray, Inbox Zero!

Finally, when you do reach inbox zero, Simplify rewards you with Gmail’s illustration from their mobile app or one of several beautiful backgrounds.

Gmail’s current inbox zero reward:

Simplify applies Gmail’s illustration from mobile:

Or one of several backgrounds:

More to come…

Things that I hope to add in future versions of Simplify to further improve the inbox and keyboard shortcuts:

• Pause or hide inbox: Gmail once had this option in Gmail Labs and I want to bring it back.

• Quick filters: I miss how Google Inbox let you flip a switch and see just starred emails in any list. Super useful.

• More keyboard shortcuts: I’ve got a list of things you can’t really do at all now, like jumping to the next unread message.

• Saved searches: as links in the left nav or maybe tabs in the inbox. But it won’t have an unread count (making it somewhat less useful).

• Profile pictures in list view: This one is tricky but I think it’s possible.

• ⌘K command menu: I’ve long loved auto-complete action menus (from Quicksilver back in the day to Slack and Superhuman). They can not only help you do more complex tasks that involve multiple actions, but they can also help you learn keyboard shortcuts for common tasks.

• Bundles (maybe): I spent quite a bit of time trying to make bundling work in Simplify v2 and while I got close, I decided to leave it out of this update. But I haven’t given up hope just yet.

How to get Simplify Gmail v2

Simplify Gmail v2 will launch in early February, 2021 as an update to Simplify v1 for Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and now on Safari too.

Keep scrolling – there’s more!

If you’re new to the newsletter, be sure to check out some of the other recent posts that detail all the new awesomeness in Simplify Gmail v2 (links to past posts are just below the comments). And subscribe to find out first about future updates (I post about once a month on average).

Subscribe now

Simplify cannot continue to exist for free. Over the last two years, I have put thousands of hours into Simplify. It isn’t slowing down and doing it for free isn’t sustainable. Building and maintaining high quality modifications on top of ever-changing software requires a lot of skill and time. And I’m only interested in making Simplify if it’s high quality.

I’m committed to never earning money through ads, sponsorships, or collecting and selling any kind of data. I’ve considered things like Patreon and Github sponsors, but decided those won’t work for me either.

Charging for software ensures you aren’t the product. There’s a saying in software that if a product is free, then you are the product. That you pay with your time, attention, privacy, data, etc. Simplify exists to give back your attention, privacy, and time.

Charging for Simplify is not only a way of ensuring it continues to function, it’s also a way of raising expectations–that it’s worth paying for.

Maximize impact, not profits.

How low can we go? Capitalism says to seek the price that maximizes profits. Simplify will be priced to maximize impact instead–as low as possible to make it more affordable and still cover the bills. The more people paying, the less everyone pays and/or the more everyone gets for their money. Pricing will be updated every year.

You pick the price. Instead of a single price that you pay or don’t pay, Simplify will be priced on a sliding scale where you decide how much it is worth to you. And the default will be near the low end, so it doesn’t feel like a guilt trip if you choose a lower price. [Update: after feedback, I am removing this complexity and just picking the low end of my intended price range.]

Enterprise pricing that isn’t backwards. I’d love for entire companies to sign up for Simplify for all their employees. But I hate how a lot of enterprise software gets more expensive per person the more people being covered. Simplify will do the opposite: the more people covered under one account, the cheaper it gets to add another person.

💰 💰 💰

Bringing it all together, what will it cost?

Updated proposal on Feb 25th based on everyone’s feedback to make pricing more fair, easy to understand, and flexible:

• Pricing is now per-person instead of per-account. Each person on a subscription gets 10 email accounts and you can contact me if you need more.

• The price is now locked to $2/mo/person (paid annually) for an individual, and $1/mo/person for each additional person on a plan. Paying monthly costs a little more to cover the additional fees.

• Auto-renewal is optional at sign-up for annual subscriptions, and I’ll be sure notifications go out before renewal for those who elect to keep it enabled.

• Keep it simple. The subscription is for Simplify Gmail only. I will figure out how to integrate future products as options when they are ready.

• Can I get it for free? Maybe. I’m grateful that so many of you see Simplify as a service worth paying for. But some feel that the price is still too expensive. While I can’t please everyone, I have a couple ideas that might help. One is to reward those that spread the word about Simplify. I’d much rather pay you for successful referrals than pay Facebook to spam people with ads. I’ll explain more about how the referral system will work in the next newsletter.

Here is what the pricing page might look like with all these changes:

The original pricing proposal:

• Simplify everything! Not just for Gmail. Soon after Simplify Gmail v2 launches, preview versions of Simplify for YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Chrome will launch too. This is just the beginning. Instead of charging different prices for different extensions, there will be one subscription that gives customers access to every Simplify product.

• Between $2 – $5 / month (paid annually) will give you access to every Simplify product. Not even the cost of a cup of coffee. You pick the price in this range. If you want to pay monthly, the price goes up $1 / month to cover added fees.

• Covers two accounts, easy to add more. One Simplify Account covers two accounts for each service (e.g., two Gmail accounts). You can add more accounts for $1 / month / account.

• Buy more accounts, pay less per person. The price drops as you add more accounts to a plan ($0.75 each after 10 accounts, $0.50 after 25 accounts, and $0.25 after 50 accounts). Here’s a spreadsheet. You can give me a list of accounts or a domain name and number of accounts to allow.

• Try before you buy. Simplify will include a 2-week free trial. For Simplify Gmail v2, you will get 4-6 weeks before you have to pay.

🚀 🚀 🚀

Simplify Gmail v2 launches next week!

For real–it’s happening! It will be a free upgrade at first and will transition to a paid service in 4-6 weeks.

I’m both incredibly excited and super nervous to find out how many of you love Simplify enough to pay for it. I’d love to hear any thoughts or ideas you have in the comments.

Turning a free product into a paid product can be a rough transition. But I’m only interested in building quality software that people highly value and can depend on for years to come. I hope many of you will join me.

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Did you know a lot of the email you get has trackers embedded in it? Tiny hidden images that when loaded, tell the sender you opened their email. And sometimes more information, like your location, device, number of times you opened the email, etc.

You might assume trackers are only in emails you get from businesses and maybe newsletters too. But what about emails from sales people? Or an email from an ex-boyfriend, or worse, a stalker?

Email trackers are creepy at best and dangerous at worst. Because they are…

1. Not expected: As the recipient, you do not expect the sender to know if, when, from where, on what, and how many times you opened their email. Especially with personal email. It’s invisible and not part of the social contract. It’s never been part of the mainstream email apps. People expect total privacy about what email they open.

2. Unregulated: No one is policing email trackers. Europe is trying to, but I’m not sure how much success they are having. Superhuman stopped recording your general location each time you opened an email from their customers, but that doesn’t mean others don’t still do this. There’s no way to know what is recorded when you open an email or what is done with that information.

3. Not beneficial: There’s no benefit to the recipient to have trackers embedded in their email. Some may argue it helps businesses know what works, but all it tells them is what clickbait subject got you to open that email. That doesn’t produce better content.

4. Not optional: There’s no reasonable way to opt out of email trackers. Some will say, “If you don’t want to be tracked, turn off automatic image load in your email client.” This is total crap. First off, it’s not intuitive that disabling images will disable email trackers. Secondly, I want to see images in my email! I just don’t want the tracker images to load.
   

Trackers are everywhere

Some of the most popular extensions for Gmail enable people to add these trackers to personal email. Apps like Superhuman got called out for embedding these trackers in all outgoing email by default. My favorite article on the subject was by Mike Davidson, about Superhuman’s practices and why trackers are generally bad. In response, Superhuman made some changes, but they did not scrap the feature.

Pretty much all newsletter platforms embed trackers, often forcing the sender to use them. Even this email you are reading right now has a tracker—because I can’t get rid of it!

Here’s what I see:

But don’t worry, I never actually look at these screens… I didn’t even know they existed until I wrote this update. And, once you have Simplify Gmail v2, I won’t be forced to spy on you.

Simplify Gmail v2 blocks email trackers

Simplify v2 blocks over 250 different email spy trackers – more than five times as many as other tracker-blocking services like PixelBlock, Ugly Email, and Hey.com. When a tracker was blocked, you see a crossed-out eye on the message near the star:

Happy to share with others!

While I’m proud that Simplify Gmail v2 blocks so many trackers, I hope to join forces with other teams fighting the good fight. I’m already in touch with Hey.com and have reached out to all the other trackers I mentioned above, hoping they will use my work to block more trackers for their customers too.

And as with all things in Simplify, I hope the Gmail team eventually makes this a feature, so trackers will be blocked on mobile as well. Maybe they can even get the entire industry to rethink this practice.

Maximum line lengths, improved

Ever open a message that goes off the page to the side? How about enormous images put in the body of the email?

Simplify v1 set a max-width (960px) for all content. In v2, the max-width for a message is now a bit more narrow (850px) and is decoupled from list view (now 1100px). There have also been a lot of improvements to make this work well in edge cases, such as super large inline images.

Compare Gmail with Simplify off vs on:

Dark mode

If you use Gmail’s dark theme, you can now set Simplify to invert only plain text emails (the default setting), all emails (including html emails), or nothing. You can also set Simplify to darken the add-ons sidebar.

Distraction-free reading

Upon opening a conversation, if the nav is not already minimized, it is now dimmed with the unread counts hidden for a distraction-free reading experience. Hover over the nav and all is restored.

Reading pane overhaul

Reading pane view was totally overhauled as shown in an earlier post. Since I wrote that post, I have made more improvements and tackled the horizontal reading pane view as well.

Compare Gmail with Simplify off vs on:

In horizontal reading pane, the actions are above the message by default. If you select multiple messages, the actions move above the list and the message pane shrinks so you can see more of the list.

Option to minimize signatures

Big signatures can distract from the message itself. Simplify v2 gives you the option to minimize signatures to a simple […] button.

But detecting signatures isn’t perfect—some are missed and on the rare occasion, part of an email body is incorrectly flagged as a signature. So, to be extra cautious, I made this an option and set it off by default. I leave it on for all my accounts and love it.

Compare Gmail with Simplify off vs on:

And more…

These are some of my favorite improvements but they are not the only ones. For example, Simplify v2 blocks email spy trackers. Don’t worry if you don’t know what those are—I’m going to dedicate an entire post to them next.

Launch scheduled for this month!

Since my last update on Simplify in August, I opened beta testing for Simplify v2 to over 300 people. New bug reports have slowed to a trickle and I think Simplify v2 is ready for everyone else now. I’ve also been working on supporting Safari (in beta now) and other tasks such as legally forming a company.

My plan is to launch Simplify Gmail v2 this month for all browsers (including Safari) as a free update so I can get it to all of you faster and you can test drive the new hotness before you are asked to pay.

By mid February, I will launch the Simplify Subscription along with some other surprises. Newsletter subscribers will find out more first.

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Gmail’s chrome is a sea of icons and buttons that take up too much space and distract from the primary content. Adam Barker, an old friend and ex-Gmail designer, used to compare this kind of design to Lucky Charms being spewed all over the screen.

To be fair, the above screenshot is an extreme. You can minimize the navigation and hide the add-ons if you don’t use them. This increases the amount of screen dedicated to content, but the nav is still a long string of icons with demanding red badges. And then the content is stretched across the screen, making it harder to read despite fewer distracting icons. This might be worse:

Simplify v1 addressed this by:

• Merging the app and action bar into one bar

• Hiding the navigation completely when it is minimized

• Condensing the add-on tray to a single button so you don’t have to hide it

• Applying a maximum width to the content so that white space can envelop and highlight what you are reading

But, there are a number of flaws in Simplify v1’s attempts to fix all these things.

One example is how Simplify v1 merged the app bar and the action bar. Wedging the search box into the upper-right corner makes for a search box that is too small and prone to breaking when Gmail changes. I have never thought this was the best design, just the best design I could provide given Gmail's DOM (how the interface is structured in the code).

I’ve sought to address this and other issues with Simplify v2 to make Simplify better in all regards.

Search, front and center

For starters, the search box is now large and centered:

To achieve this, the search box is minimized to a single button on the right when you select or open a message.

The same applies in a conversation:

In the vertical reading pane, I moved search above the list and the actions above the message. Search is never minimized as you select or move between messages.

Navigation quick access on hover

It is nice to have the left navigation fully hidden but it is also harder to access. Gmail has a nice solution for this: you can hover over any of the icons and the nav peeks open so you can use it and automatically closes once your mouse leaves the area. My only complaint is the transition is a bit sluggish.

Simplify v2 brings this functionality back via mousing over the menu button and instantly showing the nav (no transition needed):

I expected to like this hover interaction but was surprised how much I liked it. The nav is much easier to use and keep minimized. The GIF doesn’t do it justice — you’ll have to use it and see for yourself.

Dim the navigation in conversation view

I like how Superhuman hides the navigation when you open a message for total focus. I tried this with Simplify v2 but the testers did not like it. At all. So instead of hiding the navigation, Simplify dims and hides the unread counts instead. Hovering over the nav brings it to full opacity and unhides the unread counts.

Bringing back Purchases, Finances, and Trips

Google Inbox had three more categories that Gmail did not bring over: Purchases, Finances, and Trips. Gmail decided to lump a lot of these into Updates so they could fit all the categories as tabs at the top of the default inbox.

Under the covers though, the categorization of email into these buckets is still happening if you know the secret search. Simplify Gmail v2 brings these back! Still missing is grouping emails into specific trips, but other than that, hello old friends.

Chat, it’s own thing

I’ve also moved chat out of the nav and into its own button. The full roster is exposed when you hover or click on the Hangouts button.

Two things to note about chat:

1. There is a setting to keep chat in the nav for easier access if you prefer.

2. This may have to be rethought with the swapping of Hangouts for Chat and Rooms.

App bar & Add-ons: fewer buttons with easier access

Lastly, Simplify v1 has a hodgepodge approach to dealing with the various icons in the app bar (Settings, Help, App Switcher, Offline, Reading pane toggle, and any number of 3rd party extensions). Some are removed, some hidden, some moved, and some left alone.

Likewise, while moving the add-ons tray into a single icon above compose was elegant, the implementation is a bit hard to use, as the tray closes as soon as your mouse strays off the narrow tray.

Simplify v2 remedies these shortcomings. The entire app bar and the add-ons tray are all accessible by simply hovering over the profile image in the top right.

Bonus round: Menus can look nice too!

One of my early projects as a Gmail designer was redesigning labels. We elevated labels out of the More menu into a “Move to” and a “Label as” menu that still exist today. But somehow over the years, the visual design of these menus and Gmail menus in general have eroded.

Things don’t line up. Large left gutters are always applied. The highlight is full bleed except when it isn’t. Death by a thousand cuts. It eats at me.

So I fixed them. And I applied the improved style to all menus in Gmail.

Sometimes it is the little things. ☺️

Much better, but still more to come

All of these changes add up not just a better experience but a more reliable experience across the many unique Gmail setups (well over 2,500 by my calculations). Soon you will be able to try it out for yourself and let me know what you think.

There are a number of things that are still on my to do list for Simplify v2. Some will make the initial launch but most will have to wait until v2.1 as I don’t want to delay shipping v2 any longer than I need to.

• Change the “Add to tasks” icon so is more distinct from the Snooze icon

• Show more Snooze options either from past or settings

• Let you hide actions you never use

• Add a sweep action that lets you archive lots of messages at once (likely in a future update)

• Add the categories from Inbox back to Gmail as they still work (Purchases, Finance, and Trips). Trips is all your travel related email, not the individual trip bundles in Inbox. 

• Saved searches (they won’t have unread counts in the nav like labels, but I think easy access to complex or often used searches is useful even without them)
  

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Over the years, more and more things have been glued on, giving us Gmail today:

This is certainly the worst case scenario (with the formatting bar open). But the buttons that are hardest to reach are some of the most useful, as we all know Command+Z and Command+B.

The compose mole was one of the early things I designed for Google Inbox and was adopted by Gmail way before Google Inbox launched. It was meant to let you see a received message and the compose mole alongside one another. Early prototypes even shifted the message over to the left to minimize overlap.

But that shifting never shipped and Gmail’s full-width message view means any content you might trying to reference is likely covered by the compose mole.

You might also prefer to not be distracted by the rest of Gmail and use the full-screen composer.

Yup, no distractions here. (ノ-_-)ノ~┻━┻

Back to basics

Simplify tackles each of these areas, trying to make each view better serve its use case.

The compose mole is initially shorter, taking up less space (it still grows as you type). The formatting buttons we all know the keyboard shortcuts for (undo, bold, etc.) are removed, and the lesser used (but still sometimes useful) actions are moved to the overflow menu.

If you prefer the full formatting toolbar, you can use that too:

If you have both a compose mole and a conversation open, Simplify shifts the conversation to the left:

Finally, if you use the full-screen composer, I fully hide Gmail in the background so you can focus.

Clicking anywhere outside the compose window will minimize the message.

More to come

I’ve also added some new keyboard shortcuts to make it easier to get around Gmail and reply to messages. I’m going to cover that in a post on keyboard shortcuts.

And I plan to:

• let users customize compose to promote the tools you use most

• look into adding new tools (e.g. code blocks, better emoji with auto-complete)

Bonus Gmail history

The Gmail team has long called the little mini-windows for composing a message or chat a “mole.” It comes from the game “whack-a-mole” where an object pops up and you whack it back down.

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So today, I’m going to rip the band-aid off and give you a glimpse into what is coming. I won’t get too much into the details this time but I do have screenshots! I’m also going to experiment with leaving comments open to hear your thoughts and feedback.

First off, Simplify v2 is a total rewrite / redesign of Simplify. I’m doing this to improve the experience from all angles:

• Improved reliability and performance

• Improved design and enabling new features

• Improved maintenance (fix issues faster when Gmail changes)

Two areas that really show off how big of an update Simplify v2 is and don’t require a lot of explanation are Reading Pane and Settings.

Simplify Gmail Reading Pane

Reading Pane in Gmail today without Simplify:
Functional but… Icons are everywhere. I’ve got three bars above my content. The actions are far away from the message. The pagination controls look like they will go to the next message when they actually go to the next page of messages. And can we talk about that haggle-tooth notch from the tabs hanging out over the transparent scrollbar?

Reading Pane with Simplify v1:
Simplify v1 made things a little better but… Search is a lot smaller now and far away from the list of messages. The actions are far away from the message. We now only have two bars but the tabs still take up a lot of space. The compose and add-ons buttons are on top of the message. We still have a lot of zebra striping in the list of messages between read state and focused message. We can do better.

Reading Pane with Simplify v2:
Now that’s more like it. Honestly, I didn’t design this as much as I brought the already great design from Gmail on an iPad to desktop.

Simplify Gmail Settings

Here is Gmail Settings today.
I can’t tell you how sad Gmail Settings makes me. Much of it is the exact same as it was in 2007 when I joined the Gmail team. Do I really need to see all of Gmail’s chrome when in settings? The horizontal tabs stopped working a long time ago. Why is everything so densely packed? Why is the Save / Cancel button off screen if I have to save before leaving?

Gmail Settings with Simplify v1:
With Simplify v1, all I did was apply a max-width to the page and hide the rest of Gmail’s interface. It is better looking, but I didn’t fix many of the core issues.

Gmail Settings with Simplify v2:
This time I dug in and tried to fix some of my grievances with Gmail Settings. The Save / Cancel buttons are pinned to the bottom right. The tabs are left tabs now. And There is more space between the settings. Gmail could still make this a lot better but I don’t hate going to Setting any more.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments…

Hopefully that gives you a taste of what is in store with Simplify v2 and why I’m so excited to get it finished and out to everyone.

There are a lot of changes I didn’t dig into this time that are hinted at in the above screenshots. (Where is chat? Where are the add-ons? Where is the settings gear and the reading-pane toggle?) Those will have to wait for future posts but I promise I’m looking at everything and only adding functionality, never removing it.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and questions in the comments or you can always email me at hi@simpl.fyi.

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These days, we’re spending even more time on our computers than usual, which means the cost of bad design is even greater to our productivity and mental health. I recently left my job to turn Simplify into a company, so that I can streamline more of the products we use most.

This newsletter will primarily focus on the nitty-gritty of simplifying products and sparking conversations about the principles of good design as they relate to the products we use daily. But first I want to tell you a bit about my vision for Simplify, the company.

Simplify’s mission is to make existing products more simple, capable, and respectful.

Why it matters:

Bad design is everywhere. I’m equating bad design with anything that makes a product harder to use or less user-centric. Bad design can occur for a number of reasons including but not limited to:

• Our needs as users are not well understood, prioritized, or aligned with the company’s goals.

• Entropy: The natural decline of products over time as the vision decays or blurs and new features are conceived without consideration of the whole and added faster than the system’s overall design and architecture can evolve to support them.

• Good design is hard. Good design is more than making a product pretty. It is about having the right capabilities in an intuitive, respectful, and well-crafted offering. I hope to expand on this topic in future posts.

Bad design has real costs. It costs us our productivity, our attention, our sanity, our privacy, and more. The Center for Humane Technology puts it this way:

Even with the best intentions, social media companies are under immense pressure to prioritize engagement and growth. This creates a race for human attention that has unleashed invisible harms in society.

Most companies are under this pressure, not just social media companies. I should be able to read my email without having to ignore a sea of unread notifications and new feature promotions or worrying about email trackers spying on me.

As users, we are at a supreme disadvantage in the battle for our attention. Our time, attention, productivity, and joy are invaluable and they are worth fighting for.

As users, we can’t fix bad design (until now)

• Sending feedback just feels like screaming into the wind. 

• We can rarely change software we use on our own.

• Even when we can modify our apps, doing so takes time and expertise and those modifications may break over time if not well supported.

• We can “vote with our feet” and switch products, but there isn’t always a better option or we’re locked into our current option.

Simplify to the rescue! Sometimes, it’s easier to fix the system as an outsider.

The obvious ways to tackle this problem is from the inside. I’ve tried that. As much as I loved Google Inbox (a product and team I co-founded but left before launch), what launched was a well executed and polished but watered-down version of the original vision.

It isn’t that the teams behind these products don’t care. They care deeply. But big products have big teams and are often inside big companies with their own bigger (and often unclear) priorities. It is messy.

Another option is to build a startup that creates a competing product. This might work but…

1. Products like Gmail are actually pretty good already.

2. Replacing them entirely would be a lot more work which would make the product more expensive. And while it may be better in some areas, it will likely be worse in others (see #1) meaning you are paying more and possibly getting less overall.

3. Shipping a new product asks more of you, the user. I don’t want to ask you to change what product you use or migrate your data.

4. Finally, I want to push the big companies to do better by showing them how their products can be better. It is easier for big companies to dismiss small competitors as niche products that don’t consider the full complexity of their product. What if the upstart is their product?

So I’m trying a unique approach. I’m building software (browser extensions for now) that modify the products you use. While browser extensions that modify apps aren’t new, there aren’t many that are high quality, well maintained, and opinionated.

I’m fighting for everyone but focused on specific user profiles

I’m focused on people that fit any of the following profiles (all of which fit for me):

1. Maximizers: Those that seek to be the most productive in using an app.

2. Form and function: Those that value really good design over good-enough design without having to sacrifice robust capabilities.

3. Privacy-concerned: Those that care about privacy. Privacy isn’t about keeping everything private (an email app where you can’t send or receive messages?) — it is about the user having control over what is shared and how it is used. And exercising that control shouldn’t be a lot of work.

4. Distracted: Those that have a hard time staying focused and productive in a noisy interface, or in a product engineered to keep us glued when we want to move on.

Finally, I want to ensure the longevity of Simplify and maximize both value and impact

I cannot do what I want with Simplify if I continue to give it away for free. It is not sustainable. Building on top of software I don’t own requires on-going support.

Charging for software is not only a way of ensuring it continues to function, it is also a way of raising expectations–in a healthy way. I want to know that Simplify is good enough that you would pay for it.

• I only want to build quality software that people highly value and can depend on for years to come. 

• I want to include support and be responsive to your questions, issues, and feedback.

• I am committed to never earning money through ads or selling any kind of data (I don’t even collect any data to sell, not even anonymized analytics). The only statistics I have are what the browser web stores tell me about how many people have installed the extension and how many are still using it.

• While a high price can increase your perception of value, I don’t want to play mind games. I’d rather more people be able to afford the software than try and build a luxury brand or maximize profits.

With all of this in mind, I have decided to convert Simplify Gmail to be a paid extension later this year. 

• It is critical to Simplify’s success that you feel like you are getting a great deal.

• The current plan is to use a subscription model instead of a one time purchase given the work involved in maintaining and improving on modifications to products that constantly change themselves. 

• I have not finalized pricing but if I can keep 5-10% of the current customer base, I believe I can sustain Simplify on as little as $1-2 / month (paid annually). If more of you sign up, I’d like to look into reducing the price the following year.

• I want to reward those that spread the word. I’m currently thinking of something like 3 months free for every paying customer you refer.

And that’s the why, how, and what of Simplify. I welcome you to send feedback to hi@simpl.fyi and I promise future posts will be about Simplify Gmail v2 which is coming along nicely.

Until then, keep it simple.

– Michael

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