"Like" button or link for email notifications

I prefer to “reply” in a mail client as mentioned in the reply to like

All these additional steps feel wrong:

  1. Click the link
  2. Opening a web browser
  3. Visual for like action taking place
  4. Having to return to mail client
  5. Delete the mail.

The reply process would be simpler especially for mobile clients (arguably the target group for mail reply functionality):

  1. Click reply
  2. Type “like” or “+1” or similar.
  3. Hit send (depending on the mail client this also closes / archives the email conversation).

In addition the link is effectively an instruction - which was the complaint with other proposal - “how would users know”.

3 Likes