Alternatives to I Want Sandy

November 25, 2008 5:20 PM

mourning-the-about-to-be-lost-productivity-filter: What alternatives to I Want Sandy can you recommend as far as email reminder services go?

Now that the folks behind I Want Sandy have announced that they are shutting her down in two weeks on December 8 (just two weeks!!), I'm about to be stuck in a lurch without a trusted email reminder service.

What alternative services can you recommend that will let me add reminders from within my email software (i.e., gmail calendar reminders don't count, because I can't create those by sending a message, or more importantly forwarding a message from within Mail.app)?

Both free and paid services are fine as long as they are reliable & flexible, and at least somewhat likely not to disappear in the near future.

posted by dyslexictraveler to computers & internet (6 comments total)

www.rememberthemilk.com is great, and you can create events by email. It can send reminders to your email or SMS.
posted by drjimmy11 at 6:08 PM on November 25, 2008

Apparently there's even a FF extension which lets you manage tasks directly from gmail! And it's all FREEEEEEEEEEE!
posted by drjimmy11 at 6:10 PM on November 25, 2008

I really like gootodo.com. I use it primarily for work-related tasks and it's really helped my productivity. It's 18.00/ 6 months but well worth it for me.
posted by donknotts at 6:37 PM on November 25, 2008

donknotts and drjimmy11: do you know if either Remember the Milk or gootodo.com will send you back more than just a one line "todo" when they send the reminder -- i.e., the full content of an email message you forwarded to it on a date you specify?

My biggest use of Sandy currently is not so much for timed to dos (although I do do that on occasion) but more as a kind of electronic "tickler" system. What I really like about it is that I can simply forward emails to it with a reminder date and then it will send them back to me on that date.

Here's a real life example of how this is super useful: this morning I had a doctors appointment at a doctor I had never seen before, and I had forwarded off my appointment confirmation email to IWantSandy several months ago so I could forget about it till I needed it (this morning when I'm trying to find the office).

In any case this ability to have information appear in my inbox at exactly the moment I need it is what I'm dreading loosing when Sandy goes offline, and what I'm really looking to replace.
posted by dyslexictraveler at 6:57 PM on November 25, 2008

i have seen this mentioned several times on mefi.

timecave

i have not used it, but it is supposedly just what you want. you send things to it (the cave) and then they reappear when you want.

hope that helps!
posted by sio42 at 5:50 AM on November 26, 2008

dyslexictraveler: yes gootodo will include the whole email you send it as well as attachments. Individual tasks, however, are not sent back to you - they are accessed through the website. You can sign up for a daily summary of your tasks that can be emailed to you. This might be where Sandy had an advantage but I'm not familiar enough w/ that service. You can get a free trial so you might want to check it out.
posted by donknotts at 11:43 AM on November 26, 2008