A dev turned Gmail into a scrollable feed where emails auto-expire
A solo developer rebuilt their Gmail inbox to look and feel like an Instagram feed, with emails automatically disappearing after a set time. It's aimed at people drowning in newsletter subscriptions.
The project sits on top of Gmail and transforms incoming emails into a visual card-based feed you can scroll through quickly, similar to how Instagram shows posts. Instead of a cluttered inbox, each email appears as a card with an image and title. A key feature is auto-expiry: emails delete themselves after a chosen period, keeping the inbox clean without manual effort. This is a classic solo-builder move — identify a personal pain point (newsletter overload), build a lightweight tool to fix it, and post it to r/SideProject to gather early feedback and potential users.
Key points
- Works on top of your existing Gmail — no new email address needed
- Emails display as visual cards in a scrollable feed
- Auto-expiry deletes old emails automatically after a set time
- Built to solve newsletter inbox overload
- Shared on r/SideProject to get early real-world feedback
Quick term guide
- Gmail
- Google’s email service.
- subscription
- A pricing model where you pay a fixed amount of money every month for access.
- script
- A small program that automates repeated steps.
- auto-expiry
- A feature that automatically deletes items after a set amount of time, without you doing anything
- persona
- A specific personality or role that an AI agent is set to play.
- r/SideProject
- A Reddit forum where people share small personal products and projects.
- feedback
- A response that tells a user what they did well or should fix.
- share
- A server folder made available to apps or other devices.