Notion is ending Notion Mail, its Gmail client shaped by the company’s earlier Skiff acquisition, and is steering users toward AI agents for inbox management instead.
The shutdown closes another chapter in the Skiff story inside Notion. Skiff began as an encrypted email and productivity software startup, but Notion’s current email direction is now centered on agents rather than a standalone inbox app.
What Notion Is Shutting Down
Notion announced that it will shutter the Notion Mail “inbox across web, desktop, and iOS on September 22.” The product had launched in April 2025 as a Gmail client, after Notion bought Skiff in February 2024.
That acquisition brought Skiff’s team and product ideas into Notion. Within a year, Notion shut down Skiff’s email service, including @skiff.com email addresses. Notion Mail then arrived as the clearest remaining email product connected to Skiff’s work.
Now that inbox is also being retired. Notion said the decision reflects how its users are already handling email inside the broader Notion environment.
We launched Notion Mail with a belief that your inbox should think like you—more personal to how you work and over time, more capable with AI.
As Notion agents have gotten more capable, we’ve seen more users hand off email workflows to them. Today, more than half of Notion Mail users manage emails without ever opening their inbox. So, we’re going all in on using agents to run your inbox.
What Users Need To Save
Notion says most user data will remain in Gmail. Its support page states: “When the Notion Mail inbox shuts down, your email history will stay exactly where it is in Gmail.”
That means the shutdown is not being presented as a removal of Gmail-stored email history. The larger issue is what lives specifically inside Notion Mail or depends on its app-level features.
Notion urged users to export drafts and scheduled emails by September 21. Those items will not automatically move into another app. Users can also preserve parts of their Notion Mail configuration by saving setups and exporting snippets and auto label instructions.
The key practical steps are:
- Plan around the September 22 shutdown of the Notion Mail inbox across web, desktop, and iOS.
- Export drafts and scheduled emails by September 21.
- Save Notion Mail setups where needed.
- Export snippets and auto label instructions for use elsewhere.
Notion also said existing auto label work can be moved into its agent system. The company explained that users with auto label set up in Notion Mail can create a Custom Agent, and Notion will bring existing rules over. It also said that users already running Notion agents to manage email will have those agents continue running, with the email connection in Notion staying in place.
Why Agents Are Replacing The Inbox
The company’s explanation is straightforward: Notion believes the main value is moving from opening and sorting an inbox to delegating email workflows to AI agents. In its telling, the user behavior is already there, because more than half of Notion Mail users manage emails without ever opening their inbox.
That framing changes what an email product is supposed to be. A traditional email client gives users a place to read, sort, search, draft, schedule, and label messages. Notion’s agent-first approach suggests that the interface may matter less if the system can carry out the workflow without requiring the user to sit inside an inbox.
The shift also narrows what Notion Mail represented. It was not a full continuation of Skiff’s privacy-centered email service. As a Gmail client, it did not support end-to-end encryption, and its AI-centric email model did not carry the same privacy focus that Skiff had as an email provider.
Still, Notion Mail had a meaningful Skiff connection. It was built with Skiff’s infrastructure and by former Skiff executives. That is why its shutdown effectively ends what remained of Skiff email inside Notion’s product lineup.
The Skiff Legacy Inside Notion
Skiff reportedly served 2 million users and competed with services like Proton Mail before Notion acquired it. After the acquisition, Notion moved away from releasing direct follow-up products to Skiff’s portfolio.
The company may still use the people, infrastructure, and productivity ideas it gained through Skiff. The source article points to areas such as calendars and storage, while noting Notion’s broader effort to compete more strongly against rivals like Google Workspace.
But for email, the direction is now clear from Notion’s own announcement. The company is not preserving Notion Mail as a dedicated inbox across web, desktop, and iOS. It is using the shutdown to push email management toward agents.
For users, the near-term task is practical: check what depends on Notion Mail, export what will not carry over, and understand whether any regulated use requires an earlier move. Notion’s support page says: “If you rely on HIPAA coverage, you should plan to transition off Notion Mail by June 30, 2026.”
For the broader productivity market, the move shows how quickly an acquired email product can be absorbed into a different strategy. Skiff’s email identity was built around encrypted communication. Notion’s next email bet is about handing work to agents and reducing the need to open the inbox at all.