Digital Well-Being

1. Our approach

Many apps are built to keep you looking at them for as long as possible. Their success is measured in minutes spent, taps made and notifications answered. Email should not work that way. A mailbox is a tool: you open it, deal with what matters and get on with your day.

Indo Mail is designed on that principle. We want you to spend less time in your inbox, not more, and to leave it feeling in control. This page explains the choices we have made in the product, what is planned, and what you can do yourself to keep email from taking over your life.

2. Design principles

• Your attention belongs to you. We do not design features to create habits, streaks, fear of missing out or pressure to return.
• Useful beats busy. A feature is added only if it helps you read, write, find or finish something. We do not add features to raise usage figures.
• Quiet by default. Nothing flashes, bounces, plays sound or counts down on its own.
• You choose. Anything that can interrupt you can be switched off, and switching it off never costs you functionality.
• Honest design. We do not use confusing buttons, hidden settings, guilt-trip wording or false urgency to steer your choices.
• Respect for your time. Common jobs take few taps, and we avoid pop-ups that stand between you and your mail.

3. Notifications only for real mail

Indo Mail sends a notification when a real message arrives in your inbox. That is all.

We do not send notifications to remind you that you have not opened the app, to promote a new feature or plan, to show you a 'suggested' action, or to tempt you back after a break. Marketing from us goes by ordinary email, only if you have agreed to receive it, and always carries a way to opt out.

• Web Push on the web app. You decide in your browser whether to allow notifications. If you allow them, you can withdraw permission in your browser settings at any time.
• Android app. Notifications follow your phone's own notification settings, so you can silence them, change their sound or turn them off per app.
• Spam and promotions do not notify. Messages that go to the Spam folder never trigger a notification.
• Private by design. Notification payloads are encrypted in transit through the browser's push service. The service passing the alert on, such as Google, Mozilla, Apple or Microsoft, cannot read it.

If an Indo Mail notification ever appears for something that is not a message you received, please tell us at support@indoemail.in so we can fix it.

4. No engagement feeds, no endless scroll

Indo Mail has no algorithmic feed, no 'for you' page, no trending topics, no likes and no follower counts. Your inbox is a list of the messages that were sent to you, in time order, and it ends. We do not rank mail to keep you scrolling, and we do not insert suggested content among your messages.

Because Indo Mail also includes apps such as Drive, Photos and Maps, we apply the same rule across all of them. They are tools for doing a job and are not channels for content designed to hold your attention. The service has no live streaming, no coins and no virtual gifts.

5. No ads inside your messages

On the Free plan, Indo Mail may show contextual ads. Those ads are chosen only from the placement, the country, the language and the words on the page. They never use the content of your mail, your contacts or any personal data, and every ad is reviewed before it runs.

We keep ads away from your reading and writing:

• No ad is ever placed inside the body of an email you are reading or writing.
• No ad is ever disguised as an email in your inbox.
• Ads do not use sound, auto-playing video, full-screen takeovers or pop-ups.
• Pro, Business and Enterprise plans have no ads at all.
• Political ads are not accepted, and ads that pressure people with fear or false urgency are rejected under our advertising rules.

6. Quiet hours and focus tools (planned)

We know that email follows people home. These features are planned, and we are building them with the same principles as above:

• Quiet hours. You choose a daily time window, such as 10 pm to 7 am, in which Indo Mail does not notify you. Mail still arrives and waits quietly in your inbox.
• Weekend and holiday mode. A one-switch option to pause notifications for a chosen period.
• Important-only mode. Notifications only for people on a list you choose.
• Digest option. A choice to receive a single summary of new mail at times you select, in place of a notification for each message.
• Schedule send. Write now and have a message delivered during the recipient's working hours, so you do not disturb them out of hours.

These are planned and are not live yet. Until they are, you can get a similar effect today by using your phone's Do Not Disturb setting, or by turning off notifications for Indo Mail in your browser or phone and checking your mail at set times.

7. Tips for a calmer inbox

A tidy inbox is a calm one. These habits work well and need no special tools.

• Check mail at set times. Two or three times a day is enough for most people. Outside those times, close the tab or switch off notifications.
• Use labels, not folders full of clutter. Coloured labels let you mark messages as 'Follow up', 'Bills' or 'Family' without moving them around.
• Archive as you go. Archive a message when you are done with it. It stays searchable in All Mail, and your inbox becomes a to-do list.
• Search instead of sorting. Use operators such as from:, subject:, has:attachment, is:unread and label: to find what you need in seconds.
• Star only what matters. If everything is starred, nothing is.
• Mark spam as spam. Every report teaches our filters. It also keeps unwanted mail away from you tomorrow.
• Leave lists you do not read. Use the unsubscribe link of legitimate newsletters you no longer want. If the sender is not legitimate, do not click; report the message instead.
• Keep the inbox for the present. Move old threads to the archive in bulk so you are not reminded of them daily.
• Use drafts. Auto-saved drafts mean you can leave a difficult email and return to it when calm. Waiting an hour before replying to a heated message is often wise.
• Use keyboard shortcuts. They make routine work quicker so you spend fewer minutes in the inbox.
• Dark theme at night. The dark theme is easier on the eyes in low light.

8. Taking breaks

Being constantly reachable is tiring. Healthy habits protect your mind and your relationships.

• Start and end the day away from email. Try not to check mail within the first half-hour after waking or the last hour before sleep.
• Follow the 20-20-20 habit. Every 20 minutes of screen time, look at something 20 feet (about 6 metres) away for 20 seconds.
• Stand and stretch at least once an hour if you work at a desk.
• Take real days off. Switch off work notifications on weekends and holidays. If you run a business, let your team know that replies outside working hours are not expected.
• Keep devices out of meals and bedrooms. Charging your phone outside the bedroom helps sleep.
• Watch how you feel. If checking email makes you anxious, tense or unable to switch off, that is a signal to cut back. Talk to someone you trust, and seek professional help if the feeling persists.

If you are struggling with your mental health, you can call the Tele-MANAS helpline on 14416 or 1-800-891-4416 for free support in many Indian languages.

9. For teams and businesses

Well-being at work is shaped by the culture around email as much as the tool. If you run a team on Indo Mail Business, consider these steps:

• Agree working-hours expectations, and make clear that nobody needs to reply late at night.
• Encourage people to use 'Cc' only when someone really needs to see a message, and to keep subject lines clear.
• Use shared labels and clear owners for common mailboxes so that no one feels they must watch them constantly.
• Do not send non-urgent mail at night. When planned, schedule send will help with this.
• Use phone calls, not email, for real emergencies.

10. Children and young people

Indo Mail accounts are for people aged 18 and over. If you are a parent or guardian, you can help young people build healthy habits with the same ideas in this page: set limits, keep devices out of bedrooms and talk openly about their online lives. Our Child Safety page has more guidance.

11. Your feedback shapes this

We want to hear if something in Indo Mail feels pushy, noisy or distracting, or if a setting is hard to find. Tell us what happened and what you expected, and we will treat it as a design fault and not as a user error. Features that harm well-being will be changed or removed.

12. Contact

Feedback on design, notifications or well-being: support@indoemail.in. Privacy questions about notifications or ads: privacy@indoemail.in. Concerns about an ad you have seen: ads@indoemail.in. Complaints: Salena, Grievance Officer, INDO CHATS PRIVATE LIMITED, grievance@indoemail.in.