Email Cleanup: The Ultimate Guide to Cleaning up Your Inboxes

Is your email inbox a disorganized mess? Read here for the ultimate guide to cleaning up your inbox and some tips that will keep your emails organized.

Email Cleanup: The Ultimate Guide to Cleaning up Your Inboxes

With the average person receiving 121 emails per day, it’s pretty easy for an inbox to fill up quickly. And after the past two and a half years of nearly everybody working remotely, there are few things more anxiety-inducing than a full, messy inbox.

For example, is your email inbox cluttered and overwhelming? Do you feel like you can never get it completely organized? If so, then you’re in luck.

In this article, we’re going to teach you how to clean up your email inbox once and for all. By following our tips, you can create a system that works for you and keeps your email inbox clutter-free. Get ready for optimum organization!

Why It’s Important to Maintain an Organized Inbox

An organized email inbox can be the difference between a productive day and a frustrating one. When your inbox is a cluttered mess, it's hard to find the important messages among all the noise.

This can lead to missed deadlines, miscommunication, and wasted time sifting through emails you've already read.

On the other hand, an organized inbox can help you stay on top of your workload and be more efficient with your time. By taking a few minutes each day to file away or delete unimportant emails, you can make sure that your inbox only contains the messages that you need to see.

This way, you can quickly find what you're looking for and get on with your day. And, you can ensure you avoid any issues with email storage.

Ah, yes, email storage. Have you ever logged into your Gmail account, for example, only to see that pesky “your storage is almost full” message?

Now imagine getting that message just before you’re about to send out a super important proposal. Gmail says “Nope, you can’t send that email.” Then, you have to waste time and rush through the deletion of hundreds of emails just to make space to send one more.

That’s why it’s important to maintain an organized inbox, folks. Ultimately, an organized email account can help if you're looking to boost your productivity.

Have we sold you on the importance of a clean email? Great! Now, follow along as we walk you through some of our top tips for email cleanup.

Schedule a Reminder to Delete Emails Weekly

If your email inbox is like most people's, it's probably crammed full of messages that you don't need anymore. Keeping all of those old emails takes up valuable space and can make it hard to find the messages that you actually need.

That's why it's a good idea to schedule a reminder to delete old emails on a weekly basis. You can quickly get rid of messages that are more than a few weeks old, and keeping your inbox trimmed down will help you stay organized.

Plus, it'll free up some space on your email account so you can keep more messages in the future.

So go ahead and set a weekly reminder to delete emails weekly - your inbox will thank you! How do you do that? Really you can set the reminder anywhere where you usually receive your work reminders.

For most people, this is probably in iCal, Todoist, or even in their phone or agenda.

Unsubscribe From Mailing Lists

It's happened to all of us: you sign up for a new website or service, and the next thing you know, your inbox is flooded with emails. If you're like most people, your first instinct is to hit the unsubscribe button.

If you're fed up with unwanted emails cluttering up your inbox, there are a few things you can do to unsubscribe from mailing lists. First, take a look at the unsubscribe link. If it's hard to find or doesn't work, report it as spam.

You can also try using a service like Unroll Me, which consolidates all of your subscription emails into one daily digest. This makes it easier to see what you’re subscribed to so that you can make better “unsubscribe decisions” daily.

Use a Throwaway Email

While we're on the subject of unsubscribing, we thought it was important to mention one more little tip that's related. Don't use your regular email for anything online unless you have to!

Instead, use a throwaway email. Then, whenever a site, newsletter, or eCommerce store prompts you for your email, use that one. All of the emails, including the marketing communications and related spam, will go there.

This ensures that your regular email inbox stays clean and clear.

Organize Your Inbox With Folders

Inbox zero is a distant dream, and you can't even remember the last time you saw the bottom of your inbox. Does this sound like you?

If you’re shaking your head yes then we totally feel you. But it doesn't have to be that way forever. With a little bit of effort, you can organize your inbox with folders.

To get started, create a folder for each major category of email. For example, you might have folders for work, personal, family, and friends. Once you have your folders set up, start sorting your emails into them.

If you're not sure where an email belongs, ask yourself: "What is the purpose of this email?"

Once you've sorted all of your emails into folders, take a moment to delete any that are no longer relevant. And that's it! With just a few minutes of effort, you can have a tidy and organized inbox.

Label Important Emails With Tags

This email cleanup tip actually might vary depending on your email provider or the software you use. However, any good email organization system will allow you to label important emails with tags.

This is a great way to keep track of which emails need your immediate attention and which can wait.

Again, this might vary depending on whether you use Outlook, Gmail, Spark, or other email software. However, it typically looks like this:

  • To label an email, simply open it and click on the label button.
  • Then, choose the label you want to apply to the email.
  • You can even create new labels if you don't see one that quite fits your needs.
  • Once you've labeled an email, it will be easy to find later when you need it.

While this might seem like a bit of a hassle, taking the time to create a proper email labeling system can pay off down the road. It'll make staying organized a breeze.

Not sure how to label emails with Gmail? Check out their helpful email labeling guide.

Look for Email-Specific Support

Speaking of Gmail, it’s worth looking into the FAQs and guides that your email provider has available to you!

For example, if you want to know how to properly label emails in Outlook then it’s best to visit the Outlook help section to see exactly what they suggest. Oftentimes, you’ll find helpful information that will allow you to take your email cleanup to the next level.

Case in point: did you know that Outlook allows you to set rules that the software will use to effectively organize your emails for you into the proper folders?

And, Gmail even lets you divide your labels up into sub-levels. This is especially helpful for busy executives or even multi-passionate freelancers who juggle a lot of different types of communications at once.

Use Email Cleanup Software

Our last and final tip? Use an email cleanup software like Mailstrom! It allows you to unsubscribe and delete thousands of messages in just a few clicks.

More than that, though, Mailstrom is a powerful tool that amplifies your email organizational efforts in a pretty effortless way.

Unlike "artificial" algorithms, Mailstrom identifies bundles of related mail and makes it easy for you to act on them as one unit; slice through tens or hundreds of emails at once.

We know what you’re thinking, though. “This doesn’t sound safe.” But it is! Mailstrom provides an extra-strong layer of spam protection.

Furthermore, due to industry-leading encryption via OAuth2, the software never has access to your password. So, it’s basically like you’re doing the dirty work when in reality, it’s Mailstrom sifting through and cleaning up everything for you.

Think of it as a personal email assistant, only inhumanely fast and intelligent.

Clean Your Inbox Now

Ready for a bit of email cleanup? We have the solution for you.

Mailstrom is the smarter, faster way to clean out your inbox. Remove hundreds (or even thousands) of messages from your inbox all at once. You'll be amazed at how fast you can approach Inbox Zero!

Start your free trial with just one click.