Ocean App Launches to Turn Email into Tasks

Ocean arrives to turn email chaos into actionable work

A new personal productivity app called Ocean has launched its iPhone client with a clear mission: stop letting important messages hide in an overflowing inbox. Instead of fighting Gmail’s dominance, Ocean chose to plug into Gmail and Google Workspace as a third-party client, then layer a task-first workflow on top.

Ocean was developed by BigWaveLabs, co-founded by Martin Dufort and Scott Lake (an early Shopify co-founder). Their bet: make email actionable by turning messages into tasks and preventing follow-ups from falling through the cracks.

At its core is a Task Manager that accesses your email so you don’t have to copy content to an external to-do app. Tasks support rich formatting, due dates, folders, and linked email notes. Ocean can also surface action items from long messages automatically, reducing manual triage.

For inbox-zero enthusiasts, Ocean adds a smart triage layer: filters for first-time senders, persistent pingers, contacts, and even emails flagged as spam that may belong in the inbox. Subscription management and standard mail functions — compose, reply, archive, flag, delete — round out the feature set.

Meeting scheduling is built in. You can publish availability based on pending and confirmed events, block last-minute bookings, send automated invites, confirm proposals via a web interface, and auto-add confirmed meetings to your calendar — all without switching apps.

Ocean’s Mac client is coming and will include iCloud sync. For revenue, the app uses a one-time membership called Ocean Blue ($67) and offers a 14-day free trial that doesn’t auto-convert into a paid subscription.

Why target Gmail rather than compete? Gmail’s market dominance makes direct competition costly. Third-party clients that carve useful workflows on top of dominant platforms can succeed — and sometimes become acquisition targets. Past exits like Xobni (Yahoo bought it) and Accompli (acquired by Microsoft) illustrate the opportunity.

What this means for users and teams

Ocean streamlines common pain points: capturing follow-up tasks, surfacing replies from repetitive senders, and scheduling without extra clicks. That can translate into faster response times, fewer missed commitments, and clearer personal or team workflows.

For businesses, the app is appealing as a lightweight way to standardize email-to-task practices across teams that already use Google Workspace. Developers should note integration patterns: Ocean relies on Gmail APIs and will need to handle sync, permission scopes, and privacy controls carefully as it expands to desktop and cross-device sync.

Potential buyers, product teams, and enterprise IT should watch adoption signals: retention on the task features, calendar sync reliability, and admin consent flows for Workspace deployments. If Ocean finds strong traction, it becomes the kind of focused utility that larger platforms or enterprise vendors might consider acquiring.

Quick feature snapshot

• Turn emails into richly formatted tasks with due dates and folders
• Inbox triage filters (first-timers, persistent pingers, contacts, spam rescues)
• Built-in scheduling with availability controls and auto-invite handling
• Subscription management and standard mail actions

Ocean’s launch is a reminder that even in saturated markets, focused integrations and clear productivity gains can open opportunities. Whether you’re an individual chasing inbox zero or a team exploring email-driven workflows, Ocean looks like a practical alternative to stitching together multiple apps.

As Ocean rolls out its Mac client and refines sync, expect scrutiny around data handling, permission scopes, and enterprise deployment paths. Those are the areas where careful product design and developer discipline will determine whether users stick with it — and whether bigger players take notice.

If your organization is evaluating third-party mail clients or wants to quantify productivity improvements from email-to-task flows, approach the change as you would any integration project: measure baseline response and completion rates, pilot with a small team, and validate calendar and consent behavior before wider rollout.