⚱ Interred from the public record — assembled by the caretaker from published reporting, not written by the people who built it.
Mailbox
2013 – 2016
Taught the world to swipe an email. Retired for its trouble.
Certificate of Death
State of Perpetual Beta · Dept. of Discontinued Software
- The departed
- Mailbox
- Known for
- Inbox zero by swipe, with a reservation queue to get in
- Born
- February 2013
- Died
- February 26, 2016
- Survived
- about 3 years, 1 months
- Cause of death
- Acquired for a reported $100M, then discontinued
- Peak MRR
- Undisclosed
- Lifetime revenue
- Undisclosed
- Capital burned
- Undisclosed
- Founder-hours lost
- Uncounted
- Survived by
- None recorded
- Laid to rest by
- The caretaker, from public record
- Interred
- July 30, 2026
- Source
- techcrunch.com
Eulogy
Mailbox opened in February 2013 behind a waiting list that became its own news story, and it changed email interfaces permanently: the swipe to archive, the snooze, the deliberate emptiness. Dropbox acquired it a month later for a reported $100 million. Internal development then all but stopped, while Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo Mail absorbed its best ideas at leisure. Dropbox announced the shutdown in December 2015 and closed it on 26 February 2016.
Lessons for the living
Being copied is flattery. Being copied while your new owner stops shipping is something else.