• by Jess Nelson , January 29, 2016

Technology giants Google and Yahoo updated their email applications this week in a continuing battle for inbox supremacy.  

Yahoo introduced several updates to its email applications for both iOS and Android, including a new customizable swipe feature that allows yahoo mail users to tailor their mobile app experience by deciding what shortcuts a left swipe or right swipe might lead to. A variety of options include delete, star and mark as read/unread. In addition, a new multi-select toolbar allows users to select multiple messages at a time for organization or action.

Yahoo’s email application also features a few iOS- and Android-specific upgrades. The Yahoo Mail app for iOS now features a search box to find items or emails by person and keyword, and Android users can now act immediately upon receiving a mobile email notification without needing to open the application itself.

Yahoo’s updates come two days after Google unveiled a smarter search bar feature to Google Inbox on Tuesday.

Google Inbox users can now search their email for specific items, such as a membership ID information or shipping tracking numbers, and Inbox will display the answer at the top of the search bar. Considering how often consumers search their email for documents and information, Google Inbox’s time-saving feature could prove incredibly fruitful for users. 

Although Gmail is by far the most popular email service provider with almost a billion users, Google Inbox has not been as successful at recruiting new users since it’s general availability in May 2015. Nevertheless Google has released a string of updates within the past year and recent reports from 9to5Google suggest that Google may be redirecting Gmail users to Google Inbox.

Yahoo still remains a popular email provider with an estimated 273 million global users and 81 million American users in 2014. In recent months Yahoo has upgraded its mail service to integrate with third-party email services, including Gmail and Outlook.