Molto: the Android, iOS Email App You’ll Actually Use

Countless developers today are doing their best to improve the mobile email experience. These developers know it’s annoying to scroll through a list of endless messages, especially on smartphones and tablets. And they have better ideas—or so they think.

With Molto, a free email app for Android, as well as iPhone and iPad, developer Perion Network Ltd. makes email more interesting to peruse. Like Birdseye Mail before it, Molto attempts to transform email into a visual, Flipboard-style experience. (Birdseye Mail is iPad only.)

Molto used to be called Incredimail. On Oct. 23, the name was changed to Molto (Italian for “very” and/or “a lot”) and the app was updated and refined for iOS 7. Molto is new to Android, and it is currently only available for tablets. (I don’t own an Android tablet, so I wasn’t able to test the Android app.)

Molto turns messages into interactive tiles. Each tile gives you a glimpse into the message’s content and displays any associated images, such as a friend’s photo or a company logo used in an email signature.

And unlike some other recent email apps, such as Cannonball, Molto supports not just Gmail but also Yahoo!, AOL, Outlook.com/Hotmail, POP3 and IMAP accounts. (Molto points out that Microsoft provides only “limited POP3 support for Hotmail/Outlook accounts.”)

To some degree, Molto works differently on an iPhone/iPod touch than on iPads. For example, on the iPad (but not iPhone or iPod touch), you get a Facebook Photo Inbox, which lets you flip through your Facebook friends’ pictures, Flipboard style. It’s a nice touch that Facebook fans are bound to love.

Email management also varies. On iPhone/iPod touch, swiping right on a tile archives or deletes messages, depending on your settings. On the iPad, pulling a tile down reveals options for replying, forwarding, marking as unread, starring (in Gmail) or deleting/archiving.

The differences between the iPhone/iPod touch and iPad versions may take some getting used to. In fact, Molto takes such a different, highly-visual approach to email that many users will probably need a little time to adjust.

If you’re a Flipboard fan, or you’re sick of the usual old email experience, Molto is definitely worth the download.