When was the last time you were actually excited about email? If you’re older, probably back in 2004, when Gmail was rolling out its first beta invites. If you’re younger, probably never. Over the years, numerous startups have tried and failed to reinvent it, with the most successful ones simply bolting new functionality — like improved workflows or AI agents — onto the same basic inbox.

Today, a new company built by a team of former Pinterest designers and engineers is rethinking what an inbox can be from the ground up. And you might actually find this one exciting.

Extra, the first product from the consumer technology company BuildForever, ditches subject lines, folders, and tags in favor of an inbox organized around your life — bringing everything important into a single, actionable overview within its “Today” tab. This tab updates in real time with the most current and critical information extracted from the mountains of email in your inbox.

Image Credits:BuildForever/Extra

The rest of your inbox is then automatically organized into custom categories that become tabs, reflecting your life as determined by what’s already in your inbox. That means you could have tabs for family activities, travel plans, finances, newsletters, and more. The result of this reimagined inbox is a uniquely personalized experience — and one where you finally feel like you have a shot at staying on top of it all.

The idea, like many in the consumer space, emerged from a personal problem the founder wanted to solve: His inbox was a mess.

“I was a religious inbox zero person by day [at work] … you’re just constantly checking this email. And then I would open up my personal email, and it was just this wall of to-dos. And with all the junk in there, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, where do I begin?’” explains BuildForever co-founder and CEO, Naveen Gavini, a former SVP and chief product officer at Pinterest who worked at the consumer tech company for nearly 12 years.

“Honestly, after 12 hours of email all day, I didn’t have the energy, so I just quit.”

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The result, he tells TechCrunch, was missed messages, unintentionally ghosted friends, and a general sense of being buried. The problem, he believes, is structural: as emails pile up, the important ones simply fall off the page and into oblivion.

Extra attempts to change this paradigm with an entirely new interface for email, and, under the hood, AI intelligence. Notably, though, the team is not pitching Extra as an AI app, and that’s intentional.

“I think, in Silicon Valley, people are very deep in [AI], but I think the average person doesn’t even know where to start,” says Gavini. “When you mention AI, it kind of feels a little ‘power, user-y.’ But also, I just think that there are so many companies that are promising to be the AI personal assistant for your life. And I think people don’t really need that. People just want some of these basic problems solved,” he says.

“That’s what we’re focused on — solving those user problems, versus pitching the next AI that can do everything.”

And yet, a product like Extra couldn’t exist if it weren’t for the AI technology that quietly learns, understands, and then organizes your inbox for you. On top of that background intelligence, there’s even an AI assistant you can talk to for help finding emails, unsubscribing, replying with your voice, and more.

Image Credits:BuildForever/Extra

Extra’s inbox is information – not information overload

Instead of starting in a traditional inbox interface, in Extra, you begin on the “Today” view. This page represents everything going on in your inbox that you should care about, and it’s organized into categories of what needs action, what’s happening today, and what’s “good to know.” You can treat the actionable items like a to-do list, where you can swipe to clear the item when it’s completed.

For each action item, Extra tries to predict the next steps you’ll need to take and

Former Pinterest team redesigns email with Extra — and it’s actually good