In a move that underscores the rapidly shifting landscape of email management, Notion has announced it will shut down Notion Mail, its Gmail client built on the remains of the encrypted email startup Skiff. The decision, revealed via an X post and detailed on a support page, marks the end of a product that was less than a year old and was primarily built by former Skiff employees who joined Notion through a February 2024 acquisition. The shutdown is scheduled for September 22, 2025, and affects the inbox across web, desktop, and iOS.
Notion’s announcement cited a dramatic change in user behavior as the primary reason for shuttering the app. “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,” the company wrote. “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.” This pivot away from a traditional email client toward fully autonomous AI agents represents a significant strategic shift for Notion, which has been aggressively integrating artificial intelligence into its productivity platform.
The history of Notion Mail is deeply intertwined with the rise and fall of Skiff, a startup founded in 2020 that offered end-to-end encrypted email, calendar, and cloud storage. Skiff quickly gained traction among privacy-conscious users, reportedly serving 2 million users and positioning itself as a viable alternative to Proton Mail and other encrypted services. In February 2024, Notion acquired Skiff for an undisclosed sum, with the stated goal of bringing Skiff’s engineering talent and infrastructure into Notion’s broader ecosystem. However, within a year of the acquisition, Notion shut down Skiff’s standalone email service, including @skiff.com email addresses, and redirected users to Notion Mail, which launched in April 2025 as a Gmail client. Unlike Skiff’s encrypted email offering, Notion Mail did not support end-to-end encryption, a decision that disappointed many Skiff loyalists who valued privacy above all else.
The shutdown of Notion Mail is the final chapter in Skiff’s email legacy. While Notion has continued to employ former Skiff executives and engineers, the company has not released any direct follow-up products to Skiff’s full portfolio, such as encrypted calendar or cloud storage. Instead, Notion has focused on building AI-powered agents that can autonomously manage email workflows, scheduling, and other productivity tasks. The company’s support page emphasizes that most user data will remain in Gmail: “When the Notion Mail inbox shuts down, your email history will stay exactly where it is in Gmail.” However, users are urged to export drafts and scheduled emails by September 21, as those will not automatically transfer to alternative apps. Additionally, users can save their Notion Mail setups, including snippets and auto-label instructions, and rebuild them using Notion’s custom agent feature.
Notion’s embrace of AI agents for email management is part of a broader industry trend. Major players like Google, Microsoft, and Apple are all investing heavily in AI-driven email features, from smart replies to automated summarization and even fully autonomous inbox management. Notion’s claim that over half of Notion Mail users already manage emails without opening the inbox suggests that a significant portion of its user base is ready for a more hands-off approach. This aligns with the growing popularity of AI agents that can draft responses, flag important messages, and even take actions like scheduling meetings or filling out forms without direct human intervention. Notion’s agents, which are part of its broader AI platform, are designed to learn from user behavior and preferences, making them increasingly personalized over time.
For organizations that relied on Notion Mail in regulated environments, the transition may require earlier action. Notion’s support page notes that “If you rely on HIPAA coverage, you should plan to transition off Notion Mail by June 30, 2026.” This gives healthcare organizations and other HIPAA-covered entities a longer window to migrate, but they will eventually need to find an alternative email client that meets their compliance requirements. Notion has not indicated whether it plans to offer a HIPAA-compliant email solution in the future, leaving these users in a lurch.
The shutdown also raises questions about Notion’s overall strategy in the productivity market. By killing its email client so soon after launch, Notion risks alienating users who invested time in setting up the app and learning its features. However, the company appears to be betting that the long-term potential of AI agents outweighs the short-term disruption. Notion has been on a growth trajectory since its founding in 2013, evolving from a simple note-taking app into a comprehensive workspace that competes with the likes of Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and Asana. The acquisition of Skiff was intended to bolster Notion’s capabilities in secure communication and storage, but the company has instead pivoted toward AI-driven automation, which it sees as the next frontier in productivity.
Industry analysts have mixed reactions to Notion’s decision. Some argue that it makes sense to focus resources on AI agents, which have a broader potential market than a niche email client. Others point out that Notion Mail was only used by a small fraction of Notion’s overall user base, and that shutting it down allows the company to allocate engineering talent to more promising projects. However, the move also highlights the challenge of integrating acquired products and talent into a larger company’s vision. Skiff’s mission was built on privacy and encryption, values that Notion has not fully embraced in its email offerings. By abandoning the email client altogether, Notion is essentially admitting that its acquisition of Skiff did not produce the desired synergy in the email space.
Despite the closure of Notion Mail, Notion may still leverage other ideas gained through the Skiff acquisition, particularly around calendars and storage. The company has yet to announce any new products in those areas, but its AI agent platform could eventually incorporate scheduling and file management features that were part of Skiff’s original vision. In the meantime, Skiff’s legacy lives on in the form of the employees who now work on Notion’s AI initiatives, as well as in the infrastructure that was used to build Notion Mail. The email client may be gone, but the underlying technology and talent will continue to shape Notion’s product roadmap.
Users who want to migrate away from Notion Mail have several options. They can continue using Gmail directly, either through the web interface or the official Gmail app, or they can switch to other third-party email clients like Microsoft Outlook, Apple Mail, or Spark. Notion has made it easy to export data, but users must act before the September 21 deadline to avoid losing drafts and scheduled emails. Notion’s custom agent feature allows users to recreate their auto-label rules and snippets in a few clicks, ensuring that their core workflows are preserved even as they move to a different inbox.
The broader implications of Notion’s decision are still unfolding. As more companies experiment with AI agents for email, the role of the traditional inbox may continue to shrink. Notion’s claim that half of its users never open their inbox is a powerful statement about where email management is headed. Whether this trend will accelerate or prove to be a niche preference remains to be seen, but it is clear that Notion is doubling down on the belief that the future of productivity lies in autonomous agents rather than manual interfaces. The sunset of Notion Mail is not just the end of a product—it is a signal of a larger transformation in how we interact with digital communication tools.
Source: Ars Technica News