ChatInbox: Chat-Style Email
All your mail, one chat
Free · In-App Purchases
In a traditional inbox, emails from the people who matter most get buried under everything else. ChatInbox puts people first — grouping every message by contact, so each person's conversation is always one tap away.
Tap a contact. See everything you've ever exchanged — messages, attachments, history — all in one clean, chat-style view. No more hunting through a chronological pile of unread mail to find that one message from your client, your accountant, or your kid's school.
If you've ever wished email worked like iMessage — but for every account, every provider, all in one place — ChatInbox is what you've been looking for.
CONTACT-CENTERED INBOX
Every email is grouped by sender. Your contact list shows the most recent conversation first, each person appearing only once. Open a contact to see your full history, displayed as a natural back-and-forth conversation.
UNIFIED ACCOUNTS
Connect Gmail, Outlook, iCloud, and any IMAP account. All your email, all your contacts, one inbox — synced across iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
SMART CONTACT GROUPING
ChatInbox automatically groups related contacts — airlines, hotels, online shopping, subscriptions — so you can manage entire categories of email at once.
CALENDAR EMAIL FILTER
Browse your inbox by date using the built-in calendar view. Find any message from any day without searching.
VISUAL ORGANIZATION
Tag and organize emails on a Kanban board. Track what needs attention, what's waiting for a reply, and what's done.
REMINDERS & NOTIFICATIONS
Set custom reminders on any email. Get notified about messages that matter and let the rest wait.
MARKDOWN COMPOSER
Write polished emails with built-in Markdown formatting. Style text clearly without wrestling with toolbars.
PRIVACY FIRST
Your emails stay on your devices. ChatInbox connects directly to your mail servers — no third-party servers, no data mining, no tracking.
Previously used Unibox and miss email grouped by sender? ChatInbox carries that vision forward — rebuilt from the ground up for modern Apple platforms, with features Unibox never had.
Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
more New Features
- New bottom tab bar: a simpler way to get around — swap the side menu for a familiar bottom bar with Inbox, Folders, Calendar, Tags, and Settings, plus a redesigned Folders tab with search, per-account filtering, and a Snoozed view.
- Calendar, rebuilt for iOS: a clean Apple Calendar–style day view with a week strip you can swipe through, an unscheduled drawer, long-press anywhere to add an event, and drag to reschedule.
- Add to Calendar from a message: turn any email into an event or to-do with one tap, and see a badge on messages that already have something scheduled.
- Snoozed messages stay in view: instead of disappearing from the thread, snoozed messages now show up so you don't lose the context.
- Smarter search: type multiple words and only results matching all of them come back, or use quotes for exact phrases. Search now ignores trash and spam, just like your inbox does.
- Attachment previews: see thumbnails for documents and other files right in the chat list — not just images.
- Refreshed Folders banner: a cleaner, full-width filter row at the top of folder views.
- Polished Tags: a more native look and smoother drag-and-drop on the kanban board.
Improvements and Fixes
- Mail stays in sync: a long-standing issue where syncing would silently stop has been fixed, along with several causes of stuck or frozen accounts — including iCloud accounts that wouldn't load message bodies.
- Stuck messages and attachments now self-recover: if a message body or attachment failed to load, it now retries automatically instead of staying stuck.
- Gmail accounts recover better after long gaps without opening the app.
- No more unread badge flicker when you open a feed — the newest message opens as read immediately.
- Back-to-Top button redesigned as a smaller round button that's easier to tap.
- Avatars: fixed a bug where colleagues at the same company would briefly show the wrong logo after restarting the app.
- Fewer battery drains: stopped a case where a spinner would keep animating invisibly and use CPU.
- Cleaner conversations: stray "references" to threads no longer clutter your chat list.
- Small polish to the mail list so the first section header no longer sits flush against the top edge.
2026.12 3 June
New Features
- Search, redesigned: unified Filters control with live person autocomplete in From / To, parallel-query results, and tab count badges that show hits per tab at a glance.
- Snooze: new snoozed banner and section in chat, plus a custom date/time picker that stays open during native popups.
- Sync progress toast: a freshness-gated pill at the bottom of the screen with a self-creeping progress bar, so you always know when mail is catching up.
- Profile avatars: Gravatar-first chain, corner domain badge on initials avatars (toggleable), and favicon avatars for group/domain contacts.
- Custom filter chip counts: see message counts next to each filter chip (toggleable in Preferences).
Improvements and Fixes
- New Preferences toggles for the corner domain badge and filter chip counts.
- Contact swipe: trailing swipe defaults to delete-latest, pin, and move-to-group actions.
- Snoozed banner localized; iOS banner alignment refined with bigger type.
- Chat auto-pops back to the list when a thread becomes empty; undo toast aligns with the back-to-top control.
- Fixed random empty pane and ghost toolbar after rapid back/forward thread navigation.
- Attachments hide the extension label when there isn't one.
- Sync reliability: stopped zombie syncs from clearing a fresh sync's account state; full sync no longer blanks the filtered contact list between batches; woke-up snoozed rows with empty bodies are now surfaced.
- IMAP / Outlook: cross-folder MOVE label handling, orphan-folder reclaim, adaptive throttling, single-message archive sync, non-English folder-type detection, and view-switch sync for custom folders shown by leaf name.
- Folder-type mapping surfaces a missing-folder warning at Settings entry points.
2026.11.1 7 May
New features
- Customizable hover actions on the contact list (Preferences)
- Toggle to hide thread references in chats
- Expanded message font styles with a dropdown picker
- Sender-only contact grouping mode with merge-by-From banner
Improvements and fixes
- Sending: failed sends now recover the message instead of losing it
- Drafts: discard actually removes the saved draft, no more duplicate creation, body preserved across save/reopen, Pending draft badge clickable
- Trash: retries on transient failures, no more stale folder badges, Gmail no longer resurrects INBOX on trashed messages
- Capitalized account emails no longer drop rows from chat list and contacts
- Folder view refreshes when new mail arrives for the selected sender
2026.11 30 Apr
Improvements and fixes
- Redesigned message compose screen with a cleaner layout.
- Camera is now a one-tap option in the attachment menu.
- New animated “Sending…” toast in the bottom-right that confirms when your message has gone out.
- Trash, Spam, and Archive can now be undone for both single messages and bulk actions, with a toast offering Undo. Fixes for Gmail/Outlook/IMAP so undone messages actually return to your inbox.
2026.10 26 Apr
New
- Added a "Back to Top" pill for contact, sender, and mail lists — tap to jump back after scrolling.
- Redesigned Triage view
- Some improvements and bug fixes
2026.9 20 Apr
Fixed a bug which may cause inconsistent messages display for selected sender in folder view
2026.8.12 18 Apr
Fixes:
- Fixed: chats for the selected contact now refresh automatically when new messages arrive, without marking them as read.
- Fixed: attachments appearing on a message show right away instead of waiting for a reload.
- Fixed: removed an unnecessary spinner when switching contacts in the activity view for a snappier feel.
- Fixed: Outlook no longer shows repeating "authentication failed" alerts when a refresh token is invalidated.
2026.8.11 18 Apr
Improvements
- Added Portuguese (Brazil and Portugal) language support.
- Pinned contacts collapse to 3 by default for a cleaner list.
- Message header shows clearer "from" info with improved label styling.
- Unified attachment icons with simplified download status.
- Chat list now shows a loading / end-of-messages footer.
- Search is now case-insensitive.
- Gmail forwards are correctly distinguished from replies; quoted content is now hidden only in replies, not forwards.
Fixes:
- Fixed plain-text-only messages missing from chat.
- Fixed wrong contact / thread grouping for sent messages with multiple recipients and replyTo-based contacts.
- Fixed incorrect thread and unread badge counts; fixed unread count flashing after mark-as-read.
- Fixed group contacts showing too few messages.
- Fixed merge/split resetting the selected contact or losing scroll position.
- Read/unread changes now replay on failure instead of reverting locally.
- IMAP sync self-heals from stuck states, dead connections, and zombie IDLE sessions; fixed missing IMAP emails and duplicate parallel syncs.
2026.8.10 17 Apr
Fixes
- Fixed floating reply bar not appearing when "Expand All" setting is enabled
- Fixed spacer images in HTML emails appearing as huge squares
- Fixed price amounts in email tables breaking mid-number
- Fixed line-height distortions in certain HTML emails
- Fixed a rare crash in background mail processing
- Fixed unread count showing 0 for merged contacts
- Fixed PDF attachments being unopenable when email contained certain inline images
- Fixed Gmail full sync not triggering on launch
- Fixed Outlook/Office 365 accounts re-syncing from scratch on every launch
- Fixed memory growth during full mailbox sync
2026.8.8 13 Apr
Improvements and fixes:
- Sender name field — you can now set a display name when adding IMAP email accounts
- Fixed search results — resolved issues where search contacts could show empty or incorrect messages
- Fixed unread badge flashing — group contacts with reply-to addresses no longer flash their unread count
- Fixed stuck refresh button — compact sidebar refresh button no longer gets stuck spinning
- Fixed memory leaks — eliminated overlapping sync memory spikes and context leaks
2026.8.6 4 Apr
Improvements and fixes:
- Faster email loading — Emails now appear progressively as they load instead of waiting for everything to finish, so you see your inbox sooner after launching the app.
- Quicker startup sync — Email sync begins immediately when the app opens, reducing the delay before new messages appear.
- Auto-expand single messages — When a conversation has only one message, the content automatically expands so you don't have to tap to read it.
- Resolved a rare crash that could occur when opening the app.
- Fixed a layout animation glitch when the app first opens.
2026.8.5 31 Mar
Improvements and fixes:
- Faster incoming Gmail and IMAP — New emails from Gmail and IMAP accounts arrive sooner thanks to connection reuse
- Faster app launch — Startup operations are now staggered to get you into the app faster
- Gmail alias reply fix — Replying from a Gmail alias no longer incorrectly defaults to the main account
- Contact name sync — Contact names now update properly when a sender changes their display name
2026.8.4 30 Mar
Improvements:
- Draft Caching — Reply drafts are now saved per-contact so you can switch between conversations without losing your in-progress reply. A banner indicates when a saved draft is available.
- File Browser Upgrades — Search, filtering by file type, Quick Look preview, file count badges on filter chips, and improved thumbnail rendering.
Fixes:
- Fixed a crash issue when running the app for a while
- Fixed Battery Drain — IMAP IDLE and sync loops now properly stop when the app is backgrounded.
- Resolved an issue where emails could go missing when MODSEQ gap detection didn't run correctly.
- Blocking/unblocking contacts now syncs correctly across devices via iCloud, and duplicate blocked entries are cleaned up.
2026.8.3 29 Mar
Improvements:
- Floating collapse button for long messages — A floating button now appears on long emails so you can quickly collapse them without scrolling back to the top.
Fixes:
- Fixed a crash that could occur when switching between contacts rapidly due to concurrent database access.
- Fixed message content briefly flashing blank when opening a thread.
- Fixed contact list items shifting height when the unread indicator appears or disappears.
2026.8.2 25 Mar
Improvements
- Sync progress indicator replaces the refresh button during sync
- Smaller, polished sync progress ring
- Smoother sync progress animation without instant jumps
- Faster conversation switching with optimized queries
- Instant chat message loading without blank flash on contact switch
- Faster email sync with pipelined fetching and smarter concurrency
- Lower memory usage during sync and large thread viewing
Fixes
- Fixed section cache not updating when content is backfilled
- Fixed crash after extended use during sync
- Fixed spam/trash/draft messages appearing in Chats view
- Fixed contact list not reordering after message deletion
- Fixed login failures on servers that disable plain LOGIN command
- Badge count now shows all unread messages instead of today only
- Snoozed folder moved above Archive
2026.8.1 23 Mar
New Features
- Snooze and waking up — snooze conversations and see them reappear when they wake up, with a dedicated Snoozed view in the side menu
- Customizable text size — adjust both interface and message text size in settings
- Filters moved to toolbar — replaced the bottom tab bar filters with a cleaner toolbar dropdown menu
Fixes
- Read/unread status now syncs reliably across devices
- Messages are now grouped under the correct contact
- Filter counts display accurately
- Deleting a contact properly removes its messages
- Calendar (ICS) attachments now work for IMAP accounts
- Profile image placeholders show initials instead of "..."
- Unread badge color matches other badges in dark mode
- Folder message counts load at startup
- Snoozed selection and folder count colors are correct in the side menu
- Fixed contact list race condition when switching filters
- Fixed Gmail authentication issue
- Fixed memory leaks and CPU spikes
2026.8 19 Mar
Some improvements and fixes
2026.7.1 12 Mar
New features
- Messages now display in a modern chat bubble layout with inline avatars, badges, and streamlined reply/forward actions — making conversations easier to follow.
- Notifications are now faster and more reliable. You'll see the sender's profile picture in notifications, and false/duplicate alerts have been eliminated.
- Email attachments with calendar events now show rich event cards. Image attachments display inline thumbnails.
- Account sync now shows detailed progress — which folder is syncing, percentage complete, and overall folder count.
2026.7 10 Mar
New Features
- Search overhaul — Added recent searches, natural language search parsing, advanced filters (attachment type, account scope, sort options), smart suggestions, search
highlighting, and result count
- Text selection in messages — You can now select and copy text in iOS message content
- Thread references in chat — Messages that reference other threads now appear as compact inline elements with timeline connectors, giving better context in conversations
- Contact grouping preference — Choose per-sender whether to group contacts by "from" or "reply-to" address, with a new capsule UI replacing the old banner
- Notification improvements — Quick actions on notifications, plus better reliability for receiving new message notifications while the app is open
- Polished animations — Smooth expand/collapse for chat messages, consistent animation constants across the app
- Discard confirmation — Prompted when closing the editor with unsaved edits
Bug Fixes
- Sync reliability — Fixed sync getting permanently stuck, Gmail partial sync silently failing, and endless loading when refreshing during a concurrent sync
- Missing/disappearing messages — Fixed messages disappearing when they exist in multiple IMAP folders, chat messages missing from multi-account threads, and sent messages briefly vanishing after send
- Contact list issues — Fixed contact list emptying after navigation, profile images disappearing, pinned contacts showing wrong last message, and unread counters not updating
- Pagination fix — Resolved compact iOS chat pagination getting stuck when prefetched data matches page 0
- Notification delivery — Fixed iOS not receiving notifications for new messages during foreground sync
- Sending UX — Faster SMTP sending with instant sent message display, persistent sending indicator, and inline shimmer effect
- Signature handling — Fixed GIF signatures incorrectly displaying as attachments
- Reply-all accuracy — Fixed false positives in thread references from duplicate addresses
- Batch delete — Fixed batch delete by sender failing due to address matching issues
- Dark mode — Fixed race condition where WebView dark mode was lost on app relaunch
2026.6.1 3 Mar
New Features
- Onboarding experience — A welcoming view now guides you through your first account sync
- Text selection in messages — You can now select and copy text from email content
- Kanban board — Rich thread cards, collapsible columns, hide-empty toggle, manual reorder, quick-add, inline editing, and emoji picker
Improvements
- Refreshed login UI — Modernized sign-in screens with localized text across all supported languages
- Polished contact list — Richer profile avatars with overlapping multi-person layout, improved unread indicators, and better typography
- Better iPad layout — Full-screen message editor and fixed the overdue actions panel showing empty
- Signature editor — Improved font size, line spacing, and tappability; signature images now keep their custom size when sending
- Faster Gmail sync — Two-phase partial sync and larger pages for quicker full syncs
Bug Fixes
- Fixed dark mode occasionally lost on app relaunch
- Fixed IMAP deleted messages not disappearing after pull-to-refresh
- Fixed batch delete from spam not removing messages from server
- Fixed move-to-folder failing when using the folder picker
- Fixed email links with empty URLs opening a blank page
- Fixed contact names sometimes showing stale or incorrect names
- Fixed false "send failed" error when IMAP copy-to-Sent fails
-Fixed app slowdown after extended use (memory growth issue)
2026.5 20 Feb
Some improvements and fixes
2026.4.8 14 Feb
Some improvements and fixes
2026.4.3 5 Feb
In version 2026.4.1 (iOS), we’ve added powerful new AI features and streamlined email management, including:
- AI-powered proofreading for drafted email content
- Smarter AI Compose that auto-detects recipient names
- A new filter option to show groups only
- The ability to manage groups and blocked senders directly in Settings
- Removal of the Contacts view to eliminate redundancy with the Chats view
- A configurable un-send window (5 to 30 seconds) for more control over message recalls
- Fixed a possible sync delay when using multiple accounts
- Fixed a UI issue where updates could fail after syncing new messages
2026.4.2 4 Feb
In version 2026.3 for iOS, we’ve made several improvements to enhance your contact management experience, including:
- Separating the contact list by date for better organization
- Supporting pinned contacts that stay at the top of your contact list view
- Adding custom profile icons for contacts
- Delivering some performance improvements for smoother usage
2026.3 23 Jan
Some improvements and fixes
2026.2.1 15 Jan
New Features
- New bottom tab bar: a simpler way to get around — swap the side menu for a familiar bottom bar with Inbox, Folders, Calendar, Tags, and Settings, plus a redesigned Folders tab with search, per-account filtering, and a Snoozed view.
- Calendar, rebuilt for iOS: a clean Apple Calendar–style day view with a week strip you can swipe through, an unscheduled drawer, long-press anywhere to add an event, and drag to reschedule.
- Add to Calendar from a message: turn any email into an event or to-do with one tap, and see a badge on messages that already have something scheduled.
- Snoozed messages stay in view: instead of disappearing from the thread, snoozed messages now show up so you don't lose the context.
- Smarter search: type multiple words and only results matching all of them come back, or use quotes for exact phrases. Search now ignores trash and spam, just like your inbox does.
- Attachment previews: see thumbnails for documents and other files right in the chat list — not just images.
- Refreshed Folders banner: a cleaner, full-width filter row at the top of folder views.
- Polished Tags: a more native look and smoother drag-and-drop on the kanban board.
Improvements and Fixes
- Mail stays in sync: a long-standing issue where syncing would silently stop has been fixed, along with several causes of stuck or frozen accounts — including iCloud accounts that wouldn't load message bodies.
- Stuck messages and attachments now self-recover: if a message body or attachment failed to load, it now retries automatically instead of staying stuck.
- Gmail accounts recover better after long gaps without opening the app.
- No more unread badge flicker when you open a feed — the newest message opens as read immediately.
- Back-to-Top button redesigned as a smaller round button that's easier to tap.
- Avatars: fixed a bug where colleagues at the same company would briefly show the wrong logo after restarting the app.
- Fewer battery drains: stopped a case where a spinner would keep animating invisibly and use CPU.
- Cleaner conversations: stray "references" to threads no longer clutter your chat list.
- Small polish to the mail list so the first section header no longer sits flush against the top edge.
more Version 2026.12 3 June
Data Not Collected The developer does not collect any data from this app.