Upstream
The inbox designed for humans and agents
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Upstream - The inbox designed for humans and agents

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Finally, an inbox you'll look forward to. Agents sort your messages, draft your replies, and clear the grunt work behind the scenes, all in a client so well-crafted that email feels light, fast, fun.

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Best

Pretty awesome inbox management. So much saved time!

Maker

 Glad you're flying through your inbox 😎

Maker
thanks Stéphane! How much time do you think you save every week thanks to Upstream?
Maker

 love that you’re getting more of your day back!

Maker

 so happy to hear this!

Maker

 Thanks, Stephane! So glad it's saving you time 🙏

My new favourite email client. Insane how many times I’ve simply hit ‘send’ on a draft!

Maker

 It's the best feeling!

Maker

Thanks Antoine, so glad Upstream helps you manage your email :)

Maker

 💪🏾💪🏾

Maker

 Love this. "Just hit send" is exactly what we’re optimizing for

Maker

 Thank you so much Antoine

Maker

 Love hearing that, Antoine! Thank you 🙏

This is awesome! Congrats on the launch!

Maker

 Thanks a ton Hazik!

Maker

Thanks   🙏

Maker

 thanks so much!

Maker

 thanks a lot!

Maker

 thanks!

Congrats !! Looking forward to trying it out!!

Maker

 Thanks Maria! Let us know what you think 🙂

Maker
and looking forward to getting your feedback :))
Maker

 thanks a ton, us too /)

Maker

 thanks! Please share your thoughts after you try it :)

Maker

 Thank you, Maria! Hope you love it 🙌

Late to the thread but loving what I'm reading — especially Jonathan and Louis confirming nothing goes out without approval. That's the right instinct.

The follow-up I'd love your take on: how do you keep that approval step from becoming its own inbox grind? At high volume, approving every single draft can quietly recreate the exact load you're trying to remove. The teams I've watched do human-in-the-loop well tend to tier it — once the agent has earned trust, it auto-handles the truly low-stakes stuff ("got it, thanks") on its own, and reserves explicit approval for anything that actually commits you to something.

Curious whether Upstream leans that way, or keeps a hard approve-everything line on principle? Either way — congrats on #1. 👏

Maker

 Thanks for your thoughtful comment Syed! In Upstream actions need an explicit approval or send.

I'm curious what type of low stakes messages you would be comfortable having an agent send on your behalf. And on the other hand are there specific messages that you would never want an agent to automate?

 

The stuff I'd let it send on its own all has one thing in common: it's relaying a fact, not making a decision. Order

status pulled straight from tracking, "got it, we're on it" acknowledgments, answers that map 1:1 to a policy you've already published (return window, hours, sizing chart). The agent isn't choosing anything there; it's just saving someone a click.

What I'd never automate is anything that commits you: refunds, discounts, replacements, "yes we can have that to you by Friday." And anything going to a customer who's clearly upset, because that's a tone and judgment call and getting it wrong there costs you the relationship. Same for anything the agent just isn't confident about. Low confidence should route to a human, not take a guess.

So, the line I'd actually draw isn't "low vs high stakes," it's "fact vs decision." Stakes feel fuzzy in the moment, but fact-vs-decision you can write a clean rule around. Curious whether that maps to how you're thinking about it on the Upstream side.

Maker

Makes sense! Love the breakdown. Noting it all down for when we automate this even further :-)

Maker

 thanks for taking the time to write such a thoughtful response. I like the "fact vs decision" framing, definitely sounds like a cleaner distinction than low-stakes vs high-stakes.

Great idea! How do you keep the agent activity from burying the messages I actually need to read myself?

Maker

 Agents surface messages that need a reply, messages that need a follow up, and move the spammy emails to the side. That being said, all of your messages are still available for you to read and triage as you see fit.

Maker

  I'm curious what you're most worried about? Specific messages you're thinking of maybe?

 Great question. I think my concern is less about the technology and more about losing authenticity. For example, if AI starts generating large volumes of networking messages, founder outreach, podcast pitches, or partnership requests, it can become difficult to tell who's genuinely interested versus who's running an automated workflow.

Maker

 yeah makes sense. The only way we can start fighting that back is by not doing that ourselves 😉 Upstream is meant first and foremost for personal emails so definitely not something we want to enable!

I really enjoyed the UX for AI reply and integration with Granola. Congratulations on the launch

Maker

 Thanks so much Ravi! What other integrations would you like to see?

Maker

 thanks so much. Your support means a lot

Maker

Thank you  

Maker

 I'm so happy you enjoy the granola integration! If you could change one thing about it, what would you improve?

Maker

 Thanks so much! The Granola integration is one of my favorites too 🙏

the "agents do the grunt work" angle is interesting because most AI email tools still make you manage the AI. curious how the triage actually works in practice, does the agent learn your priorities over time or is it more rule-based out of the box?

Maker

Hey Raj, a couple things come out of the box:

  • 1 agent identifies everything that needs a reply and puts it in 1 place

  • 1 agent identifies the noise / spammy emails and moves them to a less intrusive place

  • 1 agent identifies when people don't reply to you and brings it back at the exact right time

And from there you can customize and add more triaging options

Maker

One thing we’ve learned is that people have surprisingly different definitions of what important means 😅

That’s why we start with sensible defaults and then let users customize the behavior from there

The UI looks absolutely beautiful and lightweight. Since it's built to clear out backend grunt work, does Upstream integrate directly with standard business tools like CRMs or project management platforms to log customer conversations automatically, or is it strictly focused on the email client layer?

Maker

 Thanks so much Andika! We have integrated with a handful of business tools, but are planning to increase our support for many more. I'm curious which tools would you like to see an integration for?

Maker

Thank you for your words  

Maker

 as the designer at Upstream, I really appreciate your comment 😄

Maker

Joseph deserves a lot of the credit here
I still remember the first designs he showed us and thinking "wait, email can actually look good?" 😂

Maker

 we’ve come a long way!

The human + agent inbox positioning is interesting. Email has a lot of hidden context, so I like that you are not framing this as just another summarizer. How do you decide which actions should stay manual versus agent-assisted?

Maker

 right now agents help you draft, follow up, or triage the spammy emails. And you can ask in the chat for more stuff. You can always do anything manually obviously

Curious how you would want things to work ideally?

Maker

Also, one principle that is important to us is that even if agents prepare a draft for you, sending is always done with your approval

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