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I wanted to share some thoughts (and frustrations) about the new shared inbox UI. We've been using Front daily since 2018 across multiple teams, and while change can often be a good thing, this redesign feels like a giant step in the wrong direction. Here’s why:

🚫 Loss of Clarity and Efficiency

The old UI made it easy to scan, prioritize, and collaborate quickly. With the new interface:

  • Message previews are less readable — whitespace is poorly balanced and visual density has increased without improving usability.

  • Viewing the conversations panel & inbox list is visually challenging. 

  • Requiring more clicks for basic tasks

  • Search bar relocation is a disaster

⛔ Workflow Disruption

We’ve built our workflows around speed and collaboration. The new UI introduces:

  • More friction in searching 

  • Composing is a challenge

  • Why change Snoozed/Archived to Later/Done?

  • Keyboard shortcuts being necessary — breaking muscle memory we’ve built over years.

  • Removal of core features like notifications & viewing @mentions

🤷‍♂️ Less Useful at a Glance

The shared inbox used to be just that — shared. Now, it feels like the UI is drifting toward an individual-centric experience:

  • Subjects are hidden/truncated

  • Mentions and comments are de-emphasized.

  • Objects are hidden behind an icon

  • On search, “team circle preview” removed to distinguish which team a message is in

  • Personal Inboxes no longer have Archived/Snoozed functionality

🙏 Feedback

I get that product evolution is necessary, and maybe some of these changes were made with good intentions. But for high-volume, team-based support or sales ops, speed and clarity are everything. Right now, it feels like form is being prioritized over function.

We’d love to see:

  • A way to opt into the old UI, or

  • More customization options to bring back clarity and visibility

  • Real consultation with power users before rolling out major changes like this. I had reached out to the team with real concerns

Would love to hear if others are feeling the same way — and hope the Front team takes this seriously. The product has been incredible, but this new UI has introduced real friction into our day-to-day.

Still have yet to find 1 new feature in the new UI which I think improves the inbox experience. 

Completely agree here!

 

I signed up for this forum just to say how bad this update is.

 

I saw in a different thread that in some month they will have a personalization feature but this has interrupted my workflow now!

 

Please bring back the old front as it is hindering my entire org.

I agree with the search being a disaster and the visual balance is a mess with it’s see of grey. The one and only good thing I’ve found is the key based short cuts are actually very useful. If you have a gaming type mouse with numerous buttons that can be programmed, then the key stroke shortcuts are great. For example, four of my templates are now buttons on my mouse. If only the search function had a key stroke shortcut. Overall though I agree the new UI is not all its hyped up to be.

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