No matter how much you put off organizing and cleaning up your inbox, there comes a time when it becomes inevitable to do so. Even if you clear your inbox by deleting emails, it will get full again if you don't have good email management practices in place.
If you never set aside time for inbox cleanup regularly, the process will take you a long time. An overloaded and messy inbox is difficult to manage and contributes to stress. Your inbox should not impact your productivity. Moreover, cleaning up your inbox is essential so you don't run out of storage space.
In this article, we will show you the best steps to quickly clean up your Gmail inbox and prevent it from getting overloaded again. The state of your inbox can reveal something about your personality. If you want to delete unwanted emails and keep your Gmail inbox manageable, read this article until the end. Incorporate the recommended tips in your email routine to make your inbox the least of your worries.
Step 1: Unsubscribe from Unwanted Emails
This may not be the first step you were expecting. If you receive many newsletters, promotional, and social emails in your inbox, unsubscribing from unwanted emails should be the first step in cleaning up your Gmail inbox and deletion the next. You're better off unsubscribing from such emails if you never open or read them.
Although Gmail has a feature for managing all your email subscriptions in one place, it hasn't rolled out to all users yet. So, we will use the unsubscribe button that Gmail provides on top of emails.
Read our detailed article, which explains how the Gmail unsubscribe button works.
Unsubscribe links at the end of emails are not only hard to find but can be potentially malicious. Therefore, use the Gmail unsubscribe button as a quicker and safer alternative. Although the Gmail unsubscribe button is convenient, it's not always enough. The sender may not honor your unsubscription request or take too long. In such cases, you should block the emails[link BlockSender section] instead.
Step 2: Use Filters and Labels to Organize Emails
An organized inbox is a tidy inbox, and who doesn't love that? Adding labels to emails makes them manageable and easy to find. Labels are similar to folders.
Refer to our in-depth guide on Gmail labels to learn more.
Using filters, you can automatically label incoming emails. Filters are used to automate repetitive tasks in Gmail, such as archiving and deleting emails.
If you have never used Gmail filters, our guide will explain everything you need to know about Gmail filters.
Step 3: Archive or Delete Old Emails in Bulk
This step is really important and should not be missed. To clean up your inbox, archive or delete old emails.
How do you decide which emails to delete and which ones to archive? If the emails are no longer needed, you should delete them. If you think you might need an email in the future, you should archive it instead of deleting it.
Step 4: Block Emails
You may continue receiving emails even after unsubscribing, which can be a hurdle when cleaning up your inbox. However, you still have the option to block the emails, which is why BlockSender was designed. It's your best bet against unwanted emails.
With this Gmail add-on, you can block email addresses, email domains, and domain extensions, send bounce-back emails, and so much more! Here's how to use the Chrome extension to block email addresses. First, install the extension from the Chrome Web Store, sign up, and link your Gmail account. Once you finish doing all this, follow the steps given below:
- Select the emails you want to block.
- Click on the "Block" icon at the top and select "Block selected emails".
- Click "Create X Blocks".
This is how you can easily block multiple email addresses at once. BlockSender will send all future emails from the blocked email addresses to the Trash folder.
Tips to Keep Your Gmail Inbox Clean
Loving the fresh look of your inbox after cleaning it up? Here are some useful tips to keep it that way so that you don't have to experience that dreadful feeling again:
-
Set Up a Routine
That's right! Your inbox needs a regular cleanup, too. You should tidy up your inbox every once in a while before it gets overloaded. -
Try the Inbox Zero Approach
Inbox Zero is an email management technique that aims at keeping the inbox empty or almost empty. If you struggle with email productivity, you should give this a try, and you'll surely see an improvement in your email experience.
Learn all about Inbox Zero here.
- Use the One-Touch Rule
Do you often procrastinate on your emails and let them pile up? That's the recipe for an unclean inbox. Use the one-touch rule to tackle emails immediately. When you open an email, do one of the following:
- Respond: Try to reply to the email immediately if it takes less than two minutes.
- Archive: If you need an email for future use, archive it.
- Delete: If you don't need to keep the email, delete it from your inbox.
- Snooze: If you need to reply to the email later, snooze it to be reminded later.
- Move/Label: Label the email if it's important but doesn't require any action.
Conclusion
In this guide, you learnt how to clean up your Gmail inbox to make it organized and manageable. You learnt inbox cleanup tips such as unsubscribing from unwanted newsletters, deleting old emails, setting up Gmail filters to automate actions on emails, applying labels to emails, and archiving emails you might need in the future.
We also presented some tips to prevent your inbox from getting cluttered again such as the Inbox Zero technique and the One-Touch rule. We hope that you never run into a messy inbox again.
