Email To Self

Summary

I was watching a Google TV demonstration on YouTube and was happy to see that I’m not the only who sends emails to myself. I can’t recall the exact context, but do clearly remember the moderator talking about the whole “sending emails to myself” spiel... and judging by the way the audience reacted I could tell that they knew exactly what he was talking about, too.

As the name might suggest, Email To Self might by a useful app if you’re also a perpetual self-mailer. Find out if the app really is useful in that department in today’s test review.
 

Test device: Nexus One
Android Version: 2.2
Root: Yes/LeoFroyo
Modifications made (change in CPU, etc.): None.

App details:
Usable as of: Android 1.5
Apps2SD: No
Authentication process required: unrestricted internet access.

Sending emails to yourself isn’t particularly complicated or time-consuming. So how might Email To Self prove to be useful in this regard?

Standard procedure usually goes something a link to a website or YouTube video to yourself in and email. All you need do is select the Share menu followed by Google Mail. You then have to punch a few characters into the address field until you can select your own email address in order to send the message. As I pointed out earlier, it’s no biggie to do so, but if you’re looking to save time Email To Self is the app for you.

You can enter your personal email address (or several email addresses if you so desire) in the Email To Self setup; you will then be able to access said address via the Share menu, the difference being that you will no longer need to access Google Mail—select Email To Self instead. If you selected only one email address in Email To Self and no other features (see below for more details) the email is ready to be sent off. That is to say: your email address has been inserted automatically and you no longer have to bother inserting the characters manually.

But that’s not all Email To Self has to offer. As mentioned, you can use several addresses within the app; you can then select one before sending a message.
What I found to be even more convenient is the option to add a label to a message. It’s pretty basic: you add a label in the subject field; using the Google Mail filters you will then be able to identify emails you’ve sent to yourself even faster.

Allow me to share my personal settings with you in order to illustrate how Email To Self works:
I’m using only one email address and two labels (“From phone” and “Blox”). Emails labeled “From phone” land in my inbox; the label is just to let me myself know that I sent the email in question from my phone. Emails labeled “Blox” wind up in Google Mail’s “Blogs” label, thanks to the filter. These emails generally contain links to relevant news articles which I stumbled across whilst surfing the internet, and which I intend to use when writing my next blog posts.
You can also send open up empty emails to yourself by starting Email To Self as you would any other app.

Email To Self’s only disadvantage that I came across is that you can’t separate different email addresses and the labels. This means that if you’ve set up two email addresses and two labels it doesn’t matter which email you choose to send a message to, you will be shown all labels—in short, you can assign specific labels to one address.

Bottom line:
If you’re not in the habit of sending emails to yourself Email To Self won’t be tickling you pink, but if you do this app may make the process a little easier and faster for you in the future.

Email To Self consists of three sections: Setup-Shortcuts, the App Shortcut (both can be accessed via the App Drawer), and inserting in the context menu in the browser, YouTube, or Tweetdeck.

Go to the Email To Self-Setup in order to insert your email address(es) and label(s) (be sure to use commas to separate them). You can also choose if you want to make use of the No Label option, and if Email To Self should try to get the Webpage Title when you’re sending links from the browser to yourself.

What doesn’t strike me as being particularly useful is the option to disable the icons within the app drawer. If you’ve disabled the setup icon you have to uninstall and reinstall the app in order to be able to access the setup.

Bottom line:
Email To Self is installed and ready to use in a jiffy. The app’s options are useful, apart from the weird icon thing, which doesn’t appear to have any helpful function whatsoever.
 

Email To Self has been running on my Nexus One for a while now—I haven’t experienced any difficulties with it so far.

Email To Self can be downloaded from the Android Market for GBP 0,65 (ca. 0,76 €).