!hey software

About !hey software

HEY, from parent company 37signals, is a premium suite of productivity tools that re-envisions personal and professional communication and scheduling. The company was founded by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, who have a long history of developing opinionated software, most notably the project management tool Basecamp. Their philosophy centers on creating simpler, more focused user experiences, a principle that drove the creation of HEY as an answer to the clutter and lack of privacy in mainstream email services.

Launched in June 2020, HEY's flagship product is a subscription-based email service that operates independently of providers like Gmail or Outlook. For an annual fee, users get a @hey.com address and access to a platform designed to restore control over their inbox. HEY's business model is direct-to-consumer, generating revenue solely from these subscriptions, which aligns the company's incentives with user privacy rather than advertising and data collection. The service is available across major platforms, including web, macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android.

The email service's core is its screening function, where any email from a new sender must be explicitly approved by the user before it can enter the main inbox, called the 'Imbox'. This permission-based system is a foundational element for eliminating unsolicited emails. The platform automatically sorts messages into different sections: the 'Imbox' for important, personal communications; 'The Feed' for newsletters; and the 'Paper Trail' for receipts and transactional emails. A significant privacy feature is the automatic blocking of tracking pixels, preventing senders from knowing if or when an email has been opened. Other workflow tools include the ability to set emails aside for later, add private notes to conversations, and merge separate email threads.

Expanding its ecosystem, HEY has introduced HEY Calendar and HEY World. The HEY Calendar presents a timeline-based day view and is designed to reflect how people naturally think about their schedules in days and weeks. It includes features for tracking habits, highlighting important events, and noting tentative plans. HEY World is an integrated blogging and newsletter platform that allows users to publish content to the web simply by sending an email to a specific address, creating a personal blog with an automatically generated URL.