We rely heavily on email for myriad tasks in our daily lives. In no time, your inbox gets cluttered and unmanageable. These free email apps have ways to take care of common email issues like privacy, organization, and overload.

Email is almost as old as the internet itself. It's no wonder then that the changes you see in new email apps and services are tweaks and iterations, rather than ground-breaking new ways of communication. Still, these minor changes do matter. That's reason enough to want to protect your data. And you need to set up better ways to manage your inbox if you want to stop feeling overwhelmed. These apps go beyond what Gmail and Outlook offer you.

1. Skiff (Web, Android, iOS): Private, Encrypted Email With 10GB Storage

Skiff is a privacy-friendly, end-to-end encrypted email service with 10 GB of free storage

Privacy is perhaps the biggest concern with email today, but we've traded our confidentiality for the free 15GB of storage space offered by the likes of Gmail and Outlook. You can opt for secure emails like ProtonMail or Tutanota, but it's a measly 1GB of free space. Skiff says no more compromises.

Skiff Mail offers 10GB of free storage space for any individual. There are no loopholes or "send an invitation to someone" kind of requirements. This is the base-level package you get for signing up. In my opinion, this makes it the first viable free alternative to Gmail because the barrier to switching has always been the storage space. And yes, it's end-to-end encrypted, so not even Skiff can read your emails.

The email app itself looks and functions like what you'd expect of any modern email app. You can search within your mails, sync with the mobile apps, set up filters and rules, apply labels, and so on. Skiff also has an encrypted alternative to Google Docs called Skiff Pages, which again replicates the same features while protecting your privacy.

Download: Skiff for Android | iOS (Free)

2. Shortwave (Web, iOS): Inbox by Gmail Alternative by Ex-Googlers

Shortwave is a Inbox by Gmail alternative to treat and manage emails like a to-do list

For many of us, the inbox is almost like a to-do list. You have to respond to a few mails with replies, you have to act upon the tasks assigned to you in some, and you have to keep track of things like bills. Google had solved this with the wonderful Inbox by Gmail, but then killed Inbox to refocus on Gmail. Well, if you're missing Inbox by Gmail, a few ex-Googlers have a new app that you'll want to check out.

Shortwave recognizes you treat your inbox as a to-do list and focuses on that. All email is grouped by sender or conversation, by default. This way, you don't need different tabs for groups. You can snooze emails for later, pin important ones to the top of your inbox, and mark the rest as "done" if you don't want to deal with them. You can also drag-and-drop emails to reorder them without being chronological.

You can add a few contacts as "Favorites" and click their name to see your last correspondence. This is excellent to see updates from your boss or teammate without having to scour through a cluttered inbox. All put together, this is the simplest way to triage your inbox to get started with work.

Shortwave also features "Workspaces" to chat with team members in a chain of emails. We didn't particularly care much for this feature; it felt like a bad version of Slack.

Currently, Shortwave retrieves the past three months of emails from Gmail in the free version of the app. If you want your full archive, the premium version costs $9 per month. Shortwave also says an Android version is in the works.

Download: Shortwave for iOS (Free)

3. Sleek (Web): Get to Inbox Zero in Gmail

Sleek is an online app to help Gmail users reach inbox zero by grouping emails by senders or domains

You've probably heard of "Inbox Zero" before. The productivity principle involves keeping your inbox at a state of zero unread or actionable emails on a regular basis, by using labels and strategies. Sleek is an email app built on top of Gmail to get you to inbox zero in intuitive ways.

You can import mails from one or multiple Gmail accounts into Sleek. Once they're all in, Sleek groups them by the sender, or by the domain of senders. So for example, the domain of your workplace will give you all mails from your workplace, while the email address of our boss will stick to all mails from your boss. The idea is to use these groupings to quickly act on them.

Along with this, Sleek gives a few shortcuts. Using the groups, the "Move Emails" button lets you apply an action on hundreds of emails from a domain in one go, like archiving all your Amazon purchases and updates. You can also redirect certain types of emails to labels, so they skip the inbox and only appear in that label.

If you're dealing with a big backlog of emails, it'll take some time for you to get to inbox zero even with Sleek's help. But it'll definitely be faster than trying to do it yourself manually in Gmail.

4. Vivaldi Mail (Windows, macOS, Linux): Vivaldi's New Email Client Built Into Browser

Vivaldi Mail is an offline email client built into the Vivaldi browser

We wanted this article to be about browser-based email apps, and Vivaldi pushed our definition of what that means. The browser giant launched Vivaldi Mail 1.0, a full-featured email client built within the Vivaldi desktop browser itself. Think of it like Mozilla launching Firefox with Thunderbird built into it.

Vivaldi Mail is a robust email client with all the features you expect. You can import messages from any email service. It has a strong search feature that will search through full emails when online, but also search through email headers when offline. If you've set up Vivaldi Mail to download emails for offline reading, then you can access and search message contents offline too. You can also save your searches as filters for quick access later.

Vivaldi Mail makes one distinction from all other email apps. Instead of just "Unread" messages, you also now have "Unseen" messages. Essentially, new messages are unseen, while those you have seen but not acted upon are marked unread. There are plenty of other neat features like keyboard shortcuts and navigation, view filters, and cross-tagging folders. Vivaldi Mail also acts as a feed reader and a calendar tool.

To access Vivaldi Mail, you'll need to download and use the Vivaldi browser for your preferred operating system. But hey, that's just another reason to switch to Vivaldi.

5. PlanMail (Web): Triage Your Gmail Inbox to Prioritize Your Messages

PlanMail is a simple way to prioritize your emails so that you can triage your inbox into today, tomorrow, and someday

You see a lot of unread messages in your overflowing inbox. What do you do? You start dealing with each individually, starting with the newest. Wrong! This is the most common mistake that people with too many emails make. The first thing you need to do is to triage or prioritize your inbox, and PlanMail has a simple system for it.

Connect PlanMail to your Gmail account and it'll start showing you emails from the newest. But it only shows one email at a time, and asks you to tap one of three buttons: today, tomorrow, or someday. You are only going to decide when you will act on this email while using PlanMail; the actual action will be done in Gmail later. PlanMail works on mobiles just as well as offline, so you can use it while on the commute to work too.

All the taps will sort your emails into those three labels on your Gmail: Today, Tomorrow, Someday. So now you can act on only those emails that need to be done today, and get to the others at their appropriate time.

Small Increments Are Still Improvement

As mentioned at the beginning of the article, none of these new email apps is ground-breaking in any way, given how old email itself is. However, the small steps they take to improve upon the existing email experience shouldn't be overlooked. If it's better in any way for you, that's all that should matter.