The last time that I wrote about Cleveland appellate attorney David Mills was in early 2009 when he started the website Courtoons, where he regularly published funny law-related cartoons. He has since stopped updating the website, although I frequently tell Mills that I hope that he starts it up again one day; they were great, and if you haven’t read his cartoons, you should check them out now because they are just as funny today. In the meantime, Mills went on to argue and win a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, a case that led to him being profiled in a cover story for the ABA Journal. Most recently, Mills teamed up with his brother and two friends to create a new iPhone app called DestroyMail, which debuted on the App Store today. It’s an email client with a humorous twist; instead of deleting an email message, the app lets you DESTROY the email message, and you are provided with funny graphics and sound as you do so.
You probably cannot use this app for your work email if your firm uses Microsoft Exchange, but it works with many online email providers: iCloud, Gmail, Yahoo!, AOL, Outlook.com and IMAP servers. I have a Yahoo Mail account that I have used when making online purchases for about 15 years now, so as you can imagine that account is full of spam — a perfect target for this app. You start by providing DestroyMail with your user account information. (The app needs your username and password to get your email, but the DestoyMail FAQ emphasizes that the developers cannot see your email messages or your account information.) You can then use DestroyMail just like any other email client to read, reply to, forward email, etc.
The fun comes when you are ready to delete a message. When you are viewing a list of email messages, swipe to the left on an individual message, just as you would do in the iPhone’s built-in Mail app. But instead of seeing an option to move the item to the trash, you’ll see an option to destroy the message. Tap that, and you will see and hear an amusing animation of the email message being destroyed.
If you want to be more efficient, you can swipe to the right, which destroys the email immediately with a shorter animation.
The free app includes only a single weapon, a grenade launcher, but I spent $0.99 for an in-app purchase to get access to others, which adds the ability to use an flamethrower, a bomb, and various other Sci-Fi-worthy weapons of mass destruction. And more (less violent) animations are coming, as noted on the developer’s blog.
When you destroy a message, it isn’t actually moved to your trash. Instead, a folder called “Destroyed” is created and the messages are moved there. You can always select all of those messages and move them to the trash yourself, but this safety valve let’s you show off to someone else that you are destroying their email just to get a laugh while still having the ability to easily locate the message later.
DestroyMail may help you get out your frustration over an email. I can think of quite a few messages I’ve received of late that I would have loved to have incinerated with a flame thrower instead of just putting them in the trash! But this is primarily just a joke app, and while I’m sure that the joke will get old soon, the app itself is free and even getting all of the additional weapons will only set you back a buck, so I have no problem recommending that you check out the app. It’s nice to see that David Mills still has a good sense of humor, and I look forward to seeing whatever he comes out with next.
Click here to get DestroyMail (free):