HN Explorer

Ask HN: Do You Email Yourself?

20 points by trilinearnz ↗ HN
I often do this, since it can be a hassle to retrieve a given piece of information when I am using many different systems during the day. Mostly, my content is solely in the subject line, and is often just a reminder, or personal note to myself.

This got me wondering: Is there a product here, or could email providers do something special when they notice you doing this?

40 comments

[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 92.9 ms ] thread
dartisan
Personally, no. I try to keep inbox zero as often as I can. For persisted reminders, I lean on other tracking software (which is usually just Notes, my phone alarm, or my calendar).
tkifnn
I email myself from work very frequently
sethammons
Any note while I'm out and about is emailed to myself.
xq3000
Haha, I remember those times when I would do that to save cool links for later. Good times. :)

Then, they made Pocket [1].

The real question is what comes after Pocket?

[1] https://getpocket.com/

RandomBacon
I used to use a pocket notebook which I still carry, to write myself to-do items. Now I just send myself a quick email with the to-do item as the subject.
masonic
I use Dropbox text files or just save as email drafts when the same email is accessible on both devices.
sedeki
Delayed/scheduled email to self is a thing, to answer your product question. Guess mainly for the non-tech crowd.
ian0
Yes, every day.

A few years ago someone taught me how to structure gmail using a system of multiple inboxes and stars. So when an email comes in I assign it a star and archive, it then shows in its inbox. Whenever I have a task that I want to remember for later I email it to myself and assign it just like I would a normal mail.

Its a phenomenal system. I dont need another app, can email myself from anywhere. Can get people to email me tasks etc.

appleflaxen
can you elaborate or provide a reference?
ian0
Sure thing:

1) Login to settings and enable multiple inboxes. This is my setup:

has:red-star URGENT

has:orange-star Important

has:blue-info Pending on someone else

has:purple-question For reference

Panel position: Below the inbox

2) Still in the settings, enable stars in the order above.

3) When you check your mail, send off instant replies, archive or star the rest accordingly. To get the orange star you just click the star icon twice, three times for the blue one etc. The purple ones I use to store things like documents I may reference later etc. In practice, I focus on the red stars every day and try to work through the orange ones maybe once a week. You could proberbly do without the blue, but its handy when your in a project management like role. You can run through them once a week and ping people for updates.

enhdless
Similarly, sometimes I message myself on Slack or Facebook.
scubbo
> message myself on [...]Facebook.

I didn't even know that was possible!

wingerlang
Probably thousands of emails to myself. I had some email tool and the top from/to was myself.
ruvis
I stopped doing that when I got todoist. Less clutter.
mikorym
No, but here is a way to WhatsApp yourself.

Create a group with one other member. Delete that member. Now you can send messages (or media) to yourself and only you will receive it. It's useful for storing notes or pictures or whatever...

jobigoud
I do that on mattermost. I opened a private chat with myself and it works out of the box.
mkbkn
I use Telegram for that. There's a "saved messages" chat where you can upload any type of file.
alireza94
I haven’t mailed myself in over 3 years. I mostly try to rely on Things for reminders and tasks.
RaceWon
Of course not... that's the craziest thing I ever heard.

I text myself.

sloaken
Of course I do, because I am the only one who knows whats important. I then filter the email into a folder. What excitement when I look into the folder and say 'Oh crap I forgot I need to do ...' but glad I now remember.
mike-cardwell
I created a Matrix room on my Matrix server with just myself in it. I post notes to it of things I need to remember.
dyeje
All the time. I use my email as a TODO list, so I send myself items. Not aware of any products that enhance it, nor can I think of anything I'd want like that.
d--b
Yep. I don't really need something special to handle this, though. I do it specifically because I don't want to have something else.
0_gravitas
so, i do the thing you really arent supposed to do, i have a private github repo where i throw all files that i want synched, from notes to full textbooks. i used to email myself, but it was always very annoying to do (and then i would need to email back any changes i would make), so github winds up being a reasonable solution- ive tried dropbox but i prefer the control i have with git/github
srijanshetty
I loved the combined view of reminders and email that 'Inbox by Gmail' used to provide, in the lack of a more sophisticated solution by GMail, I just email reminders and Snooze them to the appropriate day.

This little hack works really well and have given me decent mileage.