Usually it's access to your mailbox and a monthly bill. Here's exactly what each of the main options asks for — and the cases where you should pick one of them over Shelf.
Privacy rows are quoted from each product's own disclosure on the Chrome Web Store — the same form every developer fills out, so it's the one genuinely like-for-like column available. Prices are each product's lowest and highest published per-user tier.
| Shelf | Sortd | Drag | Gmelius | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Data the developer discloses collecting | “Will not collect or use your data” | Personally identifiable info, personal communications, location, user activity | Personally identifiable info | Personally identifiable info |
| Price | Free | $10–29 / user / mo | $12–24 / user / mo | $19–40 / user / mo |
| Free forever? | Yes, for individuals | Trial only | Trial only | Trial only |
| Account sign-in | None — there is no account | Required | Required | Required |
| Built for | One person's inbox | Teams, sales pipelines | Teams, shared inboxes | Teams, shared inboxes, automation |
| Shared inboxes & team features | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Checked 10 August 2026, from each product's Chrome Web Store “Privacy practices” page and public pricing page. These change; if something here is out of date or wrong, email me and I'll correct it.
I'd rather you install the right thing than the free thing.
support@ or sales@, with assignment, internal comments, and who's-handling-what. Shelf has none of that and won't. Buy Drag or Gmelius.
Deal stages, follow-up reminders, pipeline reporting. Sortd and Gmelius are real products built for this. Shelf just draws headings.
Shelf is Chrome on the desktop. Your sections and notes don't appear in the Gmail mobile app — that's the direct cost of never touching your account.
Sequences, auto-replies, rules that act on mail. Shelf can't send, archive, or delete anything, by design. Anything that acts on your mailbox needs the access Shelf refuses to ask for.
It's free, it's built in, and if it already works for you, use it — nothing here beats not installing something. It's worth knowing the shape of it first: sections are defined by search queries you write, and it's an inbox layout you configure on a computer.
Shelf works the other way round. You drag a thread where you want it, and it stays there because you put it there — no query has to be true about it. Sections live in any label, not just the inbox, and a thread can carry a sticky note. If your piles are describable in search syntax, Multiple Inboxes is genuinely the better answer. Mine never were.
These are good products and I'm not pretending otherwise — the team ones do things Shelf will never do. But look at the first row again. To put headings on a list and stick a note on a conversation, the going rate is a mailbox connection and a subscription.
That trade made sense to nobody I explained it to, so Shelf is built to make it impossible: no OAuth grant, no Gmail API, no server, no account. It reads the thread list already drawn on your screen and stores your sections in your browser. Chrome's install prompt will tell you it can read and change your data on mail.google.com — that's true of every extension that draws anything into Gmail, mine included. The difference is where it ends: nothing is transmitted anywhere, because there's nowhere to transmit it to.
There's a toggle that hides the whole overlay, so you can see your plain, untouched Gmail in one click and check that claim rather than take my word for it.
If it doesn't fit, you've lost four minutes and nothing else — there's no account to delete.
Add Shelf to Chrome — free Free for individuals · no account · nothing leaves your browser