Sortd Alternative: Email Elysium vs Sortd
Last updated: July 27, 2026
Sortd and Email Elysium both live inside the Gmail tab and both reorganise what you see there — but one turns your inbox into a task board and the other turns it into a filing cabinet. Which you want depends entirely on whether your email is a to-do list or an archive.
The short version
| Sortd | Email Elysium | |
|---|---|---|
| Core metaphor | Trello-style board over the inbox | Nested folder tree in the sidebar |
| Best for | Tracking work and deals through stages | Filing and finding mail |
| Team features | Yes — shared boards, pipelines | No — single user |
| Tasks and reminders | Yes, with follow-up tracking | Snooze and smart flags only |
| Nested hierarchy | Columns, not a tree | Multi-level folder tree |
| Where processing happens | Sortd backend | Your browser |
| Gmail scope requested | Full access — read, compose, send, delete | gmail.readonly |
| Free tier | Yes, limited | Yes |
What Sortd is genuinely good at
Sortd is not really competing to be a better inbox — it is competing to replace a separate task tracker. If your work arrives as email and then needs to be pushed through stages, that is a real workflow and Sortd serves it:
- Drag-and-drop pipelines. Columns like To Do / Doing / Waiting, with emails as cards you move between them.
- Team collaboration. Shared boards and lightweight CRM-style deal tracking, which Email Elysium does not attempt at all.
- Follow-up tracking. Reminders and snooze tied to the card, so threads awaiting a reply resurface.
- Tasks alongside email. Non-email to-dos can live on the same board.
If you run a sales pipeline or a small team out of a shared inbox, Sortd is solving a problem Email Elysium does not touch.
Where Sortd does not help
A board is a workflow view, not an archive. Columns are stages, and stages are temporary — a card that is "Done" has to go somewhere, and that somewhere is still Gmail's flat label list. Sortd does not give you:
- A nested folder hierarchy for long-term filing
- Rule-based automatic sorting of incoming mail into that hierarchy
- A way to browse everything under a parent category
It also adds a fairly heavy interface layer over Gmail. That is a fair trade if you use the board daily, and dead weight if you do not.
The access question, stated precisely
This is the sharpest difference between the two products, and it deserves accurate framing rather than a scare.
Sortd's own help documentation states that it requests the ability to "Read, compose, send, and permanently delete all your email from Gmail" along with "Have Offline access," and that its Chrome extension asks to "Read and change your data on app.sortd.com and mail.google.com."
Sortd also states plainly that it "does NOT read the content of your email," and that it stores only MessageId, sender, subject and date, and only for messages you actively add to a board or set a reminder on.
Both things are true at once, and the distinction matters: the scope granted and the use made of it are different questions. Sortd needs broad Gmail access because its features include composing, sending and managing mail from inside the board. The permission is proportionate to the product. But a granted scope is a capability, and you are trusting the policy rather than a technical limit.
Email Elysium inverts that. The free tier requests
gmail.readonly and nothing more, so write operations are refused by
Google's API regardless of what the code asks for. The constraint is enforced
outside our control, which is the point — you are not asked to take our word for
it. Sorting, rules, smart folders and analytics all run in your browser, and the
free tier makes no network calls beyond Google's own API.
Which should you pick?
| Your situation | Pick |
|---|---|
| Your inbox is a task list you work through stages | Sortd |
| You share an inbox with a team | Sortd |
| You track deals or a sales pipeline in email | Sortd |
| Your inbox is an archive you need to search and file | Email Elysium |
| You want nested folders and auto-sort rules | Email Elysium |
| You are not comfortable granting send/delete access | Email Elysium |
| You want the lightest possible change to Gmail | Email Elysium |
Nested folders for Gmail, computed in your browser.
Add to Chrome — free Read-only Gmail access. No account required. Privacy policy.FAQ
What is the difference between Sortd and Email Elysium?
Sortd is a task manager built on email — drag-and-drop columns, shared boards, pipelines. Email Elysium is a filing system for email — a nested folder tree with auto-sort rules.
What permissions does Sortd require?
Per its help documentation: read, compose, send and permanently delete all your email from Gmail, plus offline access. Sortd states it does not read message content and stores only limited metadata for messages you add to a board.
Is there a Sortd alternative that does not need full mailbox access?
Email Elysium's free tier uses gmail.readonly only, enforced by
Google at the API level. It does not offer Sortd's board or team features.
Can I use both?
Technically yes, though both modify the Gmail interface fairly heavily, so running them together can feel crowded. Most people will want one or the other.
Sources
- Why does Sortd need permissions to read my email? — Sortd Help Desk (permission strings and data-handling statements quoted above)
- Sortd — official site (features, boards, team functionality)
- Gmail API scopes — Google for Developers