Rodrigo Franco

March 4, 2021

The Bouncer

Even with features like the screener and the split between the Imbox, The Feed, and Papertrail, email is still addictive. I lost count of how many times I opened Hey on a new tab just to see if I had new items from VIP contacts (family, friends, clients, etc). 98% of the time the answer was a big no, but by doing this, I was already inside my mailbox and easily distracted by it.

I had to come up with another layer of protection, and I did that by writing a small chrome extension. I call it The Bouncer.

When I open Hey in my browser, this is what I usually see:

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This means there are zero unread emails from VIP Contacts on my Imbox. That's all. I can close the tab and continue with my day. If I really want to get in, I can click on the big zero, and be greeted by something this:

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Yes. A simple and crappy javascript-based captcha. If I answer it properly, The Bouncer is defeated and I'm in.

Am I a masochist? No. Am I the owner of a gullible human brain, who will keep reloading a tab to get high on dopamine jolts induced by variable gratification? Yes, and this trick breaks this cycle.

If I have new emails from VIPs, I'm not asked to solve for the captcha. With a click on the counter, I'm on my Imbox.

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How are the VIP contacts and threads defined? Anything labeled with the VIP label gets counted. Threads, contacts, domains — you name it.


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What do you think? Is that something you would be interested in using? As of right now I'm the only one using it—it was made in less than one hour—but I would be willing to share it.