Dispatch for iPhone review: If you're buried in emails, you need this app now!

For those of us that have lots of emails to keep up on everyday, the default iPhone mail app can be somewhat lacking. There are other options in the App Store but it always seems to be give and take. Dispatch aims to close a good majority of that gap by providing functionality that makes you more productive. With support for snippets, multiple account types, extensive share sheets, and more, Dispatch may just give apps like Mailbox a run for its money.

Dispatch is a new third party mail client for iPhone that has one simple goal and that's to make email management easier and lightning quick. In that regard, it succeeds. Most of this is done by the use of snippets. For folks who have a lot of emails to tend to, you probably have noticed that a lot of your responses end up being similar. This is where snippets come into play.

You can pre-generate common responses for use anytime you'd like. You can even set them to only be used with certain accounts if you choose. You can then access them whenever you respond to someone or compose a new email. Just tap the snippets button in the lower right hand corner and search for what you're looking for. Once you've found the snippet you'd like to use, just tap on it to insert it into the message. You can then edit it or add more, or simply just send.

If you've used a client like Mailbox or Mail Pilot, you'll feel right at home with the way Dispatch functions. Swiping to the right will reveal your list of accounts while swiping to the left on an email will give you some options. The usual suspects are found here including read/unread, deleting, starring, mark as spam, and more. Swiping all the way to the right will archive the message. If you accidentally swipe too far and wanted the actions menu, there will always be an undo button on the top for you to utilize.

In most aspects, Dispatch functions just like some of the other popular clients. The different is snippets and account support. I tested iCloud, Gmail, Google apps, and Rackspace accounts with Dispatch. All were able to be linked without a problem. Rackspace emails required a little extra attention but after about 30 seconds, they were set up and running perfectly.

One of the absolute best features of Dispatch is how it ties in with other apps such as 1Password, Due, Omnifocus, Things, Evernote, and many more. This means if you open an email with a calendar appointment, you can share it with apps that pertain to that kind of email. This makes is super simple and quick to get events and appointments where they need to be without transferring information manually. To me, this is really what makes an app like Dispatch invaluable for heavy email users.

The good

  • Support for other third party apps such as Evernote, Due, and more make sharing content with other apps painless
  • Snippets make responding to common emails wicked fast
  • Multiple account support, not just Gmail
  • Appealing interface that looks better than most others
  • Per account signature support

The bad

  • No push notifications
  • No unified inbox
  • No remind me later option

The bottom line

Due is quite possibly the best third party email client I've ever used for iPhone. It's well designed and a lot of though was put into share sheets and what they supported. The no push issue means I'll have to rely on notifications from another client, for now at least. I'll definitely be opening Dispatch instead of the native mail app whenever I need to do some major house cleaning throughout my inboxes though.

Allyson Kazmucha

iMore senior editor from 2011 to 2015.