Post Box - A Digital Wellbeing Experiment

The concept is really amazing, kudos to you people, but there are some serious drawbacks. The notifications of calls and messages are also skipped. Moreover, listening to music is a tedious job in itself. So, you need to fix these and make this app more customizable with options to keep some apps in the exception box or something like that.. Otherwise, I'm really impressed by the concept.

Works well but still rather basic. I've noticed that sometimes it doesn't release notifications at the selected time. A feature that is lacking is to select apps that are not blocked, so that an urgent notification or message gets through. Otherwise this is just a 'do not disturb' setting that lets notifications through periodically. I'm not certain it entirely fulfills its purpose.

The concept is great but it needs some polishing to shine in limelight and gain everyone's support. Some suggestions to start with, 1. Some apps like phone, messages need to show up notifications the moment they come out or there must be a provision to edit or create a whitelist. 2. The UI is not that grt.. I get that you want to be creative for the UI, but you need to be practical and realistic at the same time so there must be some way to access the notifications in a more intuitive manner.

Great idea but not usable without a very simple whitelist feature. If you use this app, there is no way to get notifications for important apps like calendar. If you are using your phone for event or any other reminders you cannot use this app. But I really like the idea of not getting interrupted until I am ready. It would also be great if this app could turn on certain days/times and not other times. And a faster way to dismiss would be great. Luckily I found the app "filter box". That has it

Please add the option to let certain notifications pass through! This is not even as good as using Do Not Disturb mode if I can't at least get my alarms and important contacts' texts or calls. I do like that it completely hides other notifications off the top of my phone so I won't feel tempted to check them, but what about emergencies? I know this is just a test app but it could be a great productivity app if it's just tweaked a bit more!

Awesome app. This combined with the "unlock clock" has already led me to put my phone down for longer periods, and curb the habitual scanning for notifications. Don't change a thing! Edited to add: I had no idea phone calls weren't coming through. Please update to allows phone calls and I will bring back to 5 stars! I would love to use this app but as my cell is my emergency contact number, it's just not possible.

A great concept with minor issues. Google must provide an option to bypass calls and normal text messages, so that it wil be helpful in emergency situations. Also it would be good if there are options to change the layout, adding more customizations to it. For eg. One set of notifications are grouped together, then the other in a clean way.

Its way of turning off doesn't work, the one with turning off notification rights. And I had to delete it completely and reboot to get things back to normal. Either fix it or write it somewhere inside. I missed important phone calls and messages and it was hard to answer them even when some of them came through. It is a beautiful app and an idea. They are the only 2 stars in this review. Don't give up on this app and fix it. It can be actually great.

[The good] Very good organization of notifications. Gives a minimalist look and feel to your phone. Very clean notifications layout, for people who have a lot going on on their devices. [The bad] No whitelist (very important feature missing, will cause you to miss important calls and notifs). No option to clear all notifications all at once. Not much customization on looks and timings. [Conclusion] Overall a good concept app, would like to see it developed further with a whitelist functionality.

A really nice idea for dealing with notifications. My most major gripe is the lack of ability to whitelist apps. For example, AccuBattery tells me when I should unplug my phone from the charger. Also as mentioned, the transitions used in the app feel as though they're running at half speed, when clearing through useless notifications (like Pixel Ambient Services which just tell me what song was playing). I imagine after some more time using the app these issues will cause me to uninstall.

As other reviewers have mentioned there are not enough options on how often you can see your notifications. I don't like that it doesn't auto clear notifications if I've read through them, so I see notifications from days ago which is annoying unless I press 'clear all'. I would like settings to exclude certain apps, such as messaging or phone calls, because even if I want to block app notifications, I would like to stay in touch. An option to stop post box after a certain time would be nice.

Out of all of Google's new experimental apps, post box is the one I see that is useful for me and I really want to work; however, there needs to be more customization options for individual apps and which ones you want to allow for either all the time or at certain frequencies instead of only a few times a day. Until this happens this app won't work for me.

I do like the concept. Agree there should be an option to choose which apps to block notifications. Like voicemail and severe weather alerts should come through. Still like the fact that you can pull up all notifications before the next delivery. Unfortunately, biggest issue is the phone no longer makes a noise when someone is calling.

You are definitely on to something here! I'd like a bit more personalisation options, such as always allowing notifications from certain people/apps (family and banking for example) and being able to set an hourly delivery. But the major plus for me here was being able to look at my notifications as cards within the app. It definitely helped focus me on dealing with each thing and it was nice to be all finished with them and know I won't be pestered again and I can get back to living my life.

I really love how quiet my phone is after setting up Post Box. I would love to see an update where you can allow certain apps through to your phone. For example: I set alarms for pretty much everything to make sure I'm on time. Post Box catches that notification when my alarm goes off. I would love to set up Post Box for everything else and still get my alarm notifications.

I think this is a great idea, but too simplistic in execution. I want like more control over when I receive my messages, but limiting delivery to 1-4 times per day was too infrequent. I would suggest allowing users to increase the amount of deliveries during a day. It would also be nice to have an option to let notifications for a particular app (for example, SMS messaging) get through. Finally, setting different delivery times based on day of week (weekday vs weekend usage) would be great.

Great app. Since I'm using it, I'm spending less time on my phone. The amount of deliveries is enough, but it should be possible to exclude apps from post Box. This app also collects the notification from calendar app and other important reminders. Also it should be possible to access the notifications content directly in the app, not only opening the app.

Brilliant idea! I'd only add an option to manage exceptions. For example, put Gmail in a whitelist since I already configured Gmail to notify only on very few important things like children at school emails, etc. and I can't miss those emails for 2 or 3 hours. Another point, *very important*, is that once time is due and boxes are shown, I cannot open the exact notification, but instead the app which is not the same. For example a user question in Maps goes directly to the question. Great app!

Lots of bugs to work through. When I click on "Open App" it'll take me to the app. When I try to go back to Post Box to see the rest of my notifications it crashes. Usually need to try to open twice before it works. Would be helpful to allow some notifications through (Phone) and allow some notifications during certain hours (Slack during business hours). You lose the action buttons on notifications. For example, you can't add a video to your "Watch Later" list from YouTube notifications.

Like most other reviews I've read here, I really like the app and how it organizes notifications, but certain things like phone calls need to ring through. If the app honored contacts marked as favorites like the "Do Not Disturb" feature does, and let those calls and texts from important people come through, that would be great.

An excellent idea and one I'd love to implement on my phone, but I cannot with the limited customizability of the app. A feature must be added to allow for app-by-app exceptions. For example, I would still like to receive text message notifications as they come through. Addition of this feature will significantly improve the usefulness of this app.

I love this app. I really hope that it continues to be developed. I would like to see more customization. For instance, that I could choose which apps will arrive in a batch with Post Box, and which apps will continue to send me notifications normally throughout the day. For instance, letting the phone app and other messenger apps send notifications at all times (I'd prefer to know if I missed a call right away), while having social media notifications delivered with Post Box.

I really liked the app because it's really helping me to not get distracted from so many notifications (Ting Ting) which comes from every app. Now I can leave my phone anywhere. But the only problem I'm facing is, it has muted my calls too which are really important to take. If the app provides exemption of few apps then it would have been fantastic. I hope you consider our points and come with a better version.

It might be really helpful, but: - it requires full access to message content, not just delivery status. I guess that is what Google essentially is, a free service for which you pay with personal data, but is not nessecary for this app to function in my opinion - 4 deliveries a day is a little limited. It would be nice to be able to configure the amount and times of delivery yourself.

Really helpful but needs to be improved a lot. The main cons are: 1. I don't know if this problem is only with me but the app makes the ringtone silent. This is not good. 2. There should be choices of excluding some of the apps from the effect of this app. Like the default messages app, any educational app required for job or studies etc, or my banking apps. We should get an option for "effect on all apps except these" Otherwise this is a great experiment. I truly waiting for the developments.