In 21st century email has become one of the most important tool of our daily life. Though we use internet for many entertainment reason, but email is not a part of that entertainment circle. Whether you are a student, a teacher, an employee or a businessman, email is the most important part of our digital life. Since 1993, the dawn of email it has constantly increased its popularity and become the undetachable part of 21st century’s digital life. But sadly enough, after two decades of technical improvement in information technology sector, the features of email is still stuck at the same place where it was 20 years ago.Though Gmail is the most popular and practically the best public email service but still we need to bring heaven and earth just to input a simple table within our email (if you are not using Outlook desktop). Most of us use email either directly on browser or on our smart phone and a very small amount of people use Microsoft Outlook or similar kind of application to manage their emails. But for us, the web-based email users email had always been a hectic job, if you plan to add more tabular or structured data within your email. You literally have to open a few program on your desktop to create something cool and then have to copy paste it within your compose box.
But today I’m glad to share something which will end this email dooms day forever. A few months back when I was becoming completely crazy with my email pressure along with all the extra stuffs I had to do just to make my email more readable or structured I knew that the services that I was using at that time (Boomerang &MailTrack.io extension) were not enough. So one day I stumbled upon a new service called MixMax (It’s FREE). Initially I was a bit skeptical about their service as they have offered so many things – it kind a felt like an impossible dream. But as time goes on and I started using it on daily basis, I couldn’t stop myself from sharing this awesome service with you guys. If you wanna know more about the awesomeness of MixMax, just keep reading.
Features of MixMax
MixMax is not just a tool or extension that you install on your browser. It is by far the most powerful (in terms of the features it provides) extension I’ve ever seen. So, without getting any further ado here are the features that I love about Mixmax and now I cannot think emailing without it.
Support for Google Inbox
I don’t know how many of you guys use the new Google Inbox, but I’m a huge inbox guy and after using Google Inbox for a month I will never ever get back to Gmail again. But everybody has their own preference, so it is completely cool if you don’t like inbox. Now the only reason I put in the awesome feature list is because even though there are so many email specific extensions out there (may not have the cool features like mixmax) none of them even bothered to upgrade their extension so that it become compatible with Inbox.MixMax did it and they did it in a very nice way. All Mixmax features works perfectly with Google Inbox and it is a huge deal for me as I don’t have to keep using Gmail just because my extensions don’t support Inbox yet even though I don’t like it.
Slash Command
MixMax comes with a very unique feature which I call slash command. It is basically a tool which allow you insert various things within your email without even touching your mouse. You just start your typing with a “/” (slash) and as soon as you type the slash, it will show you a list of commands which you can choose directly using your keyboard. I know it doesn’t sound much awesome here, but trust me it is a huge time saver as you can do most of your stuffs without even touching your mouse. If you start using this slash command tool for your email, after a week of using it, you can’t even think emailing without it. It is that much good. Also if you do insert something using your mouse, it will basically show you the respective slash command before inserting it, so that next time you don’t have to touch a mouse.
Email Templates
This is another great feature which I know will excite many of you. Whether you are a business person, student or a support staff at some company, there are always certain kind an emails which you have to send many times a day with a minor change like name, date etc. Generally, what most people do is they save these emails in a Microsoft Word document and then when time comes, they just copy paste it within the compose widow. But hey, this is a lot of effort just for sending same emails over and over. Also there is a huge chance of getting things wrong. As an example let’s say you forget change the client’s name or date after copy pasting. You can either lose your deal or your job for a mistake which wouldn’t have happened if email features have been improved in past twenty years.
But now with MixMax, you can create as many email templates you want with variables assigned like
{{first name}}, {{last name}} etc. in it. So that whenever you need to send that same email again, you just insert your template from your Mixmax saved template list and tab through your variables to make the changes. It is so easy and error free.Track Email Open and Clicks
I think this is the most useful feature for almost everyone who ever used email. Many times when we send an important email, we wait intensely for a reply from the other end. Whether it is a work email or business proposal email. When we don’t get a reply, there are many thought that starts clouding our head like maybe the person is in vacation, maybe the person is not interested or maybe the person is avoiding my emails. But there is no certain way to understand that secretly without informing the recipient. But now you can with theemail tracking feature of MixMax. It will notify you when the recipient has opened the email, how many times it has been opened, if the recipient has clicked on the links that you have included within your email and which exact links they have clicked on. I know some of you might be saying MailTrack.io also provides the same feature, but the reason I like Mixmax over MailTrack.io is because first it does the job in a better way than MailTrack.io and secondly I just have to install one extension i.e. Mixmax for everything, not one extension for each feature, which keeps my browser lighter too.
Inserting Tables Within your Emails
As I mentioned above, even in 21st century if we have to insert a table within an email, we either have to use Microsoft Outlook (don’t like personally) or have to use Microsoft Word (or similar word processor) to create a table and then copy paste it into our email. Such a waste of time and effort. Now with MixMax, you can insert tables directly within your compose window. Awesome, isn’t it? You either use the slash command
/table [rows] [columns] or hover on the “Enhance” button within your compose window and click on Table. It is that simple. But I must tell you this also that if you are looking for a much more complex table which have cell merge and other advance stuffs included, then I will suggest you to use the old school way i.e. create the table on a word processor and then copy-paste it into your compose box. But for general tables (which we mostly use) it works perfectly fine.Scheduling Meetings
MixMax has an awesome schedule meeting option. Earlier we have to send an email to the recipients with our free time schedule so that the person can choose a preferable time from your list and then you have to manually enter that data within your email for a reminder. But now with the awesomeness of Mixmax, you can directly select your available times from your Google Calendar and then send your free time details to the recipient in an awesomely good-looking manner. Then the recipient can click on any time he/she wanna schedule the meeting and it will automatically add that meeting to your Google Calendar. Such a clean, simple and easy to schedule meetings. 
Inserting Polls and Survey
This is something which can help all marketing person and support guys. We often need to ask our users/clients for their feedback about our service. Earlier we have to use various paid services just to do polls and surveys, but now with MixMax, you can insert pools and surveys directly within your compose box and you don’t have to pay any fee for that. It’s completely free. What you have to do is, just hover on the “Enhance” tab within your compose box and then select either “Poll” or “Survey” and then a popup window will open up where you can fill up all the values you wanna set for your poll/survey.
Send Emails Later
If you have Mixmax attached with your inbox, you can send emails to a later date. So, if you are sending an email to someone who lives in a different time zone, you can set the email to be send sometime when it will be morning on the recipient’s end. You can choose any date and time and the email will be sent to the recipient even if your computer is closed.
Insert Formatted Code
To all geeks like me, this is one of the most heavenly feature MixMaxhas to offer. Often we need to send snippet of codes to each other for various reason. But no matter how well you format your code, when you paste it within your compose box, it just always looks awful. But in MixMax there is actually an option to insert formatted code within your email, which is handcraftedly built for geeks like us. All you have to do is over on the “Enhance” tab within your compose window and then select “Formatted Code” from the list. After you select, it will open up a popup window where you can give a title of your code and select the formatting of your code for almost all languages out there. It is simply awesome.
Free Upgrade to Starter Pack
Another great thing I love about MixMax is that they are not money hungry organization like most others. They focus on quality over money. Now after seeing some of the great features that I’ve mentioned above you can literally understand that it is a huge project and to run such a gigantic project by a small startup, needs lots of money and genius developers. So, there are free plans (with sight restrictions) and paid plans. If you visit their pricing page, you will get more in-depth idea about it. Now even if you start your account as a free user, if you invite 7 people to use Mixmax, they will upgrade your account to the Starter Pack (costs $9/month) for FREE. Can you imagine it? You will get a paid plan for free, just by using 7 friends. I have truly never seen such a company like Mixmax, who not only provides an awesome tool for taking email to the next level but also gives a paid plan for free to the users in return of 7 invites, which I feels like nothing in terms of what you are getting in return. Also trust me if you guys start using Mixmax, you will invite your friend anyway, because it is so good.
Honorable Mentions
To be very honest with you guys Mixmax comes with so many features that if I write one paragraph for each of its feature, the size of the article will be atleast 10,000 words and no one will read it. So, I’m providing a list of Mixmax features which I haven’t explained above so that you guys can see yourself how many features this single extension has.
- Separator
- Giphy GIFs
- Mail merge
- Link Preview
- PDF Slideshow
- Github Gist Embed
- Google Maps Embed
- Call to Action Buttons
- Complex Math Equations
- Unlimited Size Attachments
- YouTube/Vimeo Video Embed
- Twitter Tweets/Timeline Embed
Besides all these, MixMax guys are working hard each day to add more new features. It is simply breathtaking when you thing how a single extension can entirely change the way you use email every day.
Things that are Missing in MixMax
Now we all know that we don’t live in a perfect world. Nothing is 100% perfect. This is not different for MixMax too. No matter how awesome it is, still there are a few things that are missing in MixMax to make it 100% perfect product in my opinion. Here is a list of things that is still not available in MixMax (some of them are under development right now) but I like to see them implemented in near future.
No Support for Firefox, Safari & Opera Browser
Right now the MixMax extension only works for Google Chrome. As Google Chrome is the browser mostly used by people around the world (also the best developer friendly browser), MixMax only support Chrome for now. I’ve heard that they are developing new extension for different browsers like Firefox, Opera & Safari, but I have no idea when they are going to be launched. I personally think MixMax devs mostly concentrate of making their product even better and adding new awesome features rather than creating extensions for other browsers.
No Mobile App Available
MixMax doesn’t have any Android or iOS app at this moment. But one of the MixMax official did tell me that they are deliberately working on their mobile app and it will be launched very soon. They are also very open for feedbacks and feature requests for the mobile apps. So, if you have any sweet idea or feature request that you want to see in their mobile app, just shoot them an email atsupport@mixmax.com. I was baffled to see how much they entertain the feedback & comments about their product.
No Inline Reply Option
Unfortunately Mixmax doesn’t support inline reply at this moment. But they said that they are working on this feature and will be released soon. Now every time you reply an email you have three option to choose from. Either you can open up a small compose window of Gmail, Google Inbox or you can open up the full screen compose window or you can open up the compose window as a pop-out window. But you cannot do inline reply like we used to do within our threaded emails. You can choose your preferred compose option directly from Mixmax settings page. I hope Mixmax guys launch this feature soon because I truly miss it and I think I’m not the only person with this same feeling.
Only Support Gmail & Google Apps (all versions) Account
Unfortunately, MixMax only supports Gmail & Google Apps (all versions) account. So, if you have an email account with yahoo, outlook, rediff or anyone else, you won’t be able to use MixMax, at least right now. I hope they are working on adding more email services. But you have to understand that Google is a very developer friendly company. Whatever feature they introduce, they have a API for all of them so that genius developers like MixMax guys can take advantage of it to invent something awesome. But not all company is so lenient in terms of providing APIs to do awesome stuffs. So, I personally don’t blame MixMax guys not to include other email provider, as a developer myself, I do understand the pain.
Still Confused About MixMax Features?
Well if you are still confused about all the MixMax features that I’ve explained above, I will suggest you to take a look at this video below where I’ve demonstrated quite a few MixMax features and you can see it in action before starts using it.
Conclusion
Mixmax truly helped me to take my old boring email experience to a whole new level. Though initially I didn’t trust on it’s potential, but after using it for weeks, I cannot hold myself back from sharing it with others. It is that good. If you also kind a fed up with daily email load, I will definitely suggest you to give MixMax a try and I can assure you that you won’t regrade it even for a minute. I know there is still a few room for improvements in MixMax, but as I said nothing is perfect in this world and the best part is MixMax guys are always looking forward to new feedbacks on their product. If you have any feedback to share, just shoot them an email at support@mixmax.com. So, what are you waiting for? Go and install MixMax now and make your emails a thing to enjoy.
Feedback
So, have you guys ever used MixMax before? What is your experience with it? Are you also completely overwhelmed by it’s awesome features? I would love to hear your feedbacks on this. Let me know your thoughts in the comment section below and we can continue this discussion there.
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