• by Ray Schultz , October 26, 2017

AOL, newly integrated into Verizon’s Oath brand, is dumping Alto Mail, an app introduced in 2012 to help users cut through inbox clutter. The company will stop supporting the app in December.

AOL announced the closure in an email to users.  

Engadget, which is owned by Oath but claims editorial independence, reports that Alto Mail “faced an uphill battle in the market.” It continues: "Many email apps have cleaned up their designs, and it's harder to argue in favor of Alto when there are higher-profile rivals (like Google's Inbox) that also make sense of your messages. The main issue is arguably the loss of yet another alternative email client, at least for now."

The report continues that "the mobile apps will no longer be available as of November 9th and Alto is ending support for all apps on December 10th." 

Engadget first reported on the web-based email client in 2012. "Instead of signing up for a brand-new email address, users log into the service with an existing Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL or iCloud account and can use Alto to organize, send and receive messages," it said. 

Engadget now states that the firm’s developers expect to incorporate their know-how into "current and future products and experiences."

Alto Mail is still being shut down, however, and "it's clear between this and the AOL Instant Messenger shutdown that Oath isn't keen on preserving legacy services," Engadget writes.