I wrote an email service that actually works for me and my ADHD.

hperrin@lemmy.world to ADHD@lemmy.world – 104 points –
sciactive.com

Hi, I’m Hunter Perrin. I created an email service called Port87.

I have ADHD, and keeping my email organized has always been a struggle. Three years ago, I started using a new organization strategy for my email where I’d add plus tags and use filters to move them into labels, “hperrin+whatever@gmail”. This worked for a few months until I got lazy and stopped creating the filters. Then my inbox slowly became just as messy as before.

So I spent the last two years writing my own email service that does it automatically. You can’t even use your address without a label. Everything is organized based on the address you give out, so I have an address for everything.

Anyway, I wanted to share this with you guys. It’s my experience of using my own email service. Obviously, I’m biased, but I still think it’s a valid take on the struggles of email organization with ADHD. If nothing else, maybe the plus tag system can help you out with your current email provider. :)

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I just read your article and tried emailing your “bare address” to test the auto response, as suggested. Very clever!

I’ve just signed up with another provider but I’d be very tempted if you ever have an instance based in the EU.

How does this work with mobile clients, actually?

My instance and all my servers are based in California, which has (IMO) the next best data protection laws after the EU, but I definitely want to expand into the EU.

Right now, it only has a progressive web app, so you can do all the usual things of putting it on your home screen and getting push notifications, but it’s not an actual native app.

I’m working on a native mobile app. That will probably be ready mid next year. (Right now custom domain support and domain user management are taking priority.)

I’ll also be writing an IMAP server for it, so you’ll eventually be able to use it with any IMAP client (Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird, etc.).