If you are anything like me, you probably get a few hundred emails a day. Some of those emails require immediate attention but most are for future actions that I don’t need to look at now. So how do you clean up your inbox without losing the reminder for these future actions? Enter a cool new free service called Followupthen.com.
Ubiquitous
Using the service is simple, you send the email to a special (time coded) Followupthen.com email address and the service will then remind you at the designated date and time. The interesting part of this process is that it works on all platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux, iPhone, Ipad, Android) as long as you can send and receive emails.
It requires no special plug-ins, no complicated configuration or proprietary app.
Competition
Followupthen does have competition in this space from the likes of Followup.cc and Bomerang but it does have differentiating characteristics. Boomerang requires browser plug-ins so it limits its use and make it a little more complicated which is why I wouldn’t even consider it.
Followupthen.com allows you to send an unlimited number of reminders for free and uses more natural reminder language (e.g. to reminder you of something in 23 minutes, you simply send an email to [email protected] No account or registration required.
Their Premium service
Although we would like everything to be free, they have to have a revenue stream if they want to continue providing services. They have chosen to adopt the freemium model where most users will be able to use the free service without issues but where power users can pay a little extra and get the jacked up super powered version.
So for $24 a year, you get:
- SMS Reminders
- Customization of reminder email designs (company logo, layout, etc)
- You can manage your reminders via a simple web interface
- Calendar integration so your reminders get added to your calendar
- Ability to have attachments in your reminder emails
- You can use these premium services for all your email addresses
Security
Like most cloud services, they take some security precautions to protect your information but just remember that email, by it’s very nature, isn’t secure. An email can easily be intercepted by anyone between the sender and receiver.
Conclusion
I think you should try this free service right now. There are dozens of situations where it will be extremely useful.
Additional Service Information
How to Use FollowUpThen
FollowUpThen requires no account to get started!
Just compose an email and include [schedule format]@followupthen.com in the "Cc", "Bcc" or "To" fields of your email. Each is a bit different:
- BCC: You will receive a followup but we won't bug the original recipient.
- TO: You will get a followup after the time interval you specify.
- CC: If your recipient has not responded by the scheduled time, both of you receive a followup. Note: Your recipient has to “reply all” to include followupthen on their response for us to know about it. You can always cancel followups by emailing [email protected].
Time Formats
Here are some examples of the scheduling formats you can use:
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
[email protected]
Quick video