My inbox is a mess from signing up for everything. How do you handle it?
18 comments
Like you my friend had 15,000 emails she had accumulated over a 5 year period in her gmail account from signing up to everything.
This made her google account full and she kept getting warnings and received no new emails. I am not a google user so forgive my random language and misunderstandings.
I tried to delete them for her from her phone, but you can only delete 30 emails at a time in the app.
I then got her to sign in to her gmail from her browser. Again it is not easy to delete 15,000 emails when you can only delete a certain amount (100) each time.
I could only do it by using rules in the search box.
older_than:4y
This deleted all emails over 4 years old.
I then did, older_than:3y, older_than:2y, and older_than:1y
So she was left with a years worth of emails.
I searched for say: "Next", to show all the emails from "Next".
I slowly went through them and unsubscribed, then deleted all the emails acssociated with "Next".
I did this for all the companies she had signed up to.
It took a long afternoon but eventually I managed to reduce her emails down to a manageable 150.
I have set her up a Protonmail account and redirected all her gmail to protonmail. And taught her about good email hygeine.
Protonmail now has an Unsubscribe button. Transfer the mailing list emails to the unsubscribe folder and unsubscribe from all the emails in the unsubscribe box.
Unsubscribing is a nightmare, just trying to find the intentionally hidden, link at the botton when you are as old and as blind as me is a testing task.
This made her google account full and she kept getting warnings and received no new emails. I am not a google user so forgive my random language and misunderstandings.
I tried to delete them for her from her phone, but you can only delete 30 emails at a time in the app.
I then got her to sign in to her gmail from her browser. Again it is not easy to delete 15,000 emails when you can only delete a certain amount (100) each time.
I could only do it by using rules in the search box.
older_than:4y
This deleted all emails over 4 years old.
I then did, older_than:3y, older_than:2y, and older_than:1y
So she was left with a years worth of emails.
I searched for say: "Next", to show all the emails from "Next".
I slowly went through them and unsubscribed, then deleted all the emails acssociated with "Next".
I did this for all the companies she had signed up to.
It took a long afternoon but eventually I managed to reduce her emails down to a manageable 150.
I have set her up a Protonmail account and redirected all her gmail to protonmail. And taught her about good email hygeine.
Protonmail now has an Unsubscribe button. Transfer the mailing list emails to the unsubscribe folder and unsubscribe from all the emails in the unsubscribe box.
Unsubscribing is a nightmare, just trying to find the intentionally hidden, link at the botton when you are as old and as blind as me is a testing task.
In most cases filters based on the "from" address are enough. Sometimes the subject is also needed.
Unsubscribe from marketing emails you don't care about. The USA, surprisingly, has a law where if they don't have an unsubscribe link at the bottom, the CEO of that company goes to jail. I presume this law only passed because politicians got annoyed by spam. Use it.
Sometimes you do want them but want them to be out of sight (e.g. emails from digi-key about new products). Then filter them.
You can use email aliases if you want to. If you have your own domain you can use any address you like and even if they're not separate mailboxes you can use the "to" address for filtering. Gmail provides unlimited free aliases: [email protected] is an alias for [email protected] and so is [email protected] (for sites that are aware of the + aliases).
Unsubscribe from marketing emails you don't care about. The USA, surprisingly, has a law where if they don't have an unsubscribe link at the bottom, the CEO of that company goes to jail. I presume this law only passed because politicians got annoyed by spam. Use it.
Sometimes you do want them but want them to be out of sight (e.g. emails from digi-key about new products). Then filter them.
You can use email aliases if you want to. If you have your own domain you can use any address you like and even if they're not separate mailboxes you can use the "to" address for filtering. Gmail provides unlimited free aliases: [email protected] is an alias for [email protected] and so is [email protected] (for sites that are aware of the + aliases).
I have the opposite problem. My inbox is overoptimized and clean, and I get no emails. Anyway, the usual suggestions have been mentioned already - like going through older emails and cleaning. This extension also works:
https://www.inboxpurge.com/
You get a few free attemps to clean emails. You can even just use it to search for subscriptions and delete manually.
https://www.inboxpurge.com/
You get a few free attemps to clean emails. You can even just use it to search for subscriptions and delete manually.
In reading the other responses, I feel it might be good for you to remember that your current inbox is a result of your system. To solve your problem long-term, you'd do well to ascertain what your system is and how it works; and then figure out where and how to intervene in that system. Perhaps some of the suggestions in other comments will help patch things up; or perhaps you'll want to start over with a simple system that works.
I know the foregoing might sound trite, but it's coming from a place of experience.
My system involves processing my inbox to zero on a regular basis and processing certain types of emails in a batch as infrequently as necessary.
In the inbox, I start by immediately unsubscribing from any list I get put on from senders I recognize (if I want the information, I figure out a way to get it by RSS). If I don't recognize the sender, or if unsubscribing didn't work, I mark it as spam.
If the information is something I need or want to receive by email, I need to do something with it, and it comes at predictable intervals, then I use filters to apply an appropriate label (grouping similar items) and skip the inbox; and then I have a system to process those emails all at once at an appropriate interval. The batching saves time; keeps my inbox clean (which also saves time and mental energy); and it solves the problem of senders who send the same information or same email multiple times.
I take the time to ask myself:
What is this?
Do I receive it regularly?
Do I want to receive it?
How do I want to receive it?
Do I need to do something with it?
How frequently do I need to do something with it?
Can I do that thing all at once with multiple items from this and similar senders?
It takes time to answer these questions and to set up rules and systems to handle the items, but that investment pays dividends and quickly starts to reduce the amount of time spent in your inbox.
And if you haven't already, consider learning the basics of Getting Things Done or a similar productivity system.
P.S.: Also ask yourself why you're "signing up for everything" in the first place. That seems to be one of the root causes of your situation and an important part of your current system to think about.
I know the foregoing might sound trite, but it's coming from a place of experience.
My system involves processing my inbox to zero on a regular basis and processing certain types of emails in a batch as infrequently as necessary.
In the inbox, I start by immediately unsubscribing from any list I get put on from senders I recognize (if I want the information, I figure out a way to get it by RSS). If I don't recognize the sender, or if unsubscribing didn't work, I mark it as spam.
If the information is something I need or want to receive by email, I need to do something with it, and it comes at predictable intervals, then I use filters to apply an appropriate label (grouping similar items) and skip the inbox; and then I have a system to process those emails all at once at an appropriate interval. The batching saves time; keeps my inbox clean (which also saves time and mental energy); and it solves the problem of senders who send the same information or same email multiple times.
I take the time to ask myself:
What is this?
Do I receive it regularly?
Do I want to receive it?
How do I want to receive it?
Do I need to do something with it?
How frequently do I need to do something with it?
Can I do that thing all at once with multiple items from this and similar senders?
It takes time to answer these questions and to set up rules and systems to handle the items, but that investment pays dividends and quickly starts to reduce the amount of time spent in your inbox.
And if you haven't already, consider learning the basics of Getting Things Done or a similar productivity system.
P.S.: Also ask yourself why you're "signing up for everything" in the first place. That seems to be one of the root causes of your situation and an important part of your current system to think about.
I do three categories in my gmail:
- Primary: mail from knowns, important starred mail
- Updates: OTP/accounts related, good newsletters that post less frequently
- Promotions: everything else
- Primary: mail from knowns, important starred mail
- Updates: OTP/accounts related, good newsletters that post less frequently
- Promotions: everything else
The page down key? I think I get 2-3 hundred emails a day in addition to all my texts and voicemail (which all also goes to my email so I can read it in mutt) and it's just not a problem. I did have to switch to digests for a few super high traffic lists like BusyBox.
Got access to SimpleLogin via Proton subscription, which in turn plays really nicely with Bitwarden as my password manager..
Every new account gets a new alias from SimpleLogin via Bitwarden which then redirects to a specific ‘burner’ inbox and then can turn off the Aliases as needed.
Every new account gets a new alias from SimpleLogin via Bitwarden which then redirects to a specific ‘burner’ inbox and then can turn off the Aliases as needed.
Never give your real email to anyone, always use aliases.
For Apple users the „Hide My Email“ feature is invaluable. A short look in my settings tells me that right now I have 171 active aliases.
For Apple users the „Hide My Email“ feature is invaluable. A short look in my settings tells me that right now I have 171 active aliases.
Create one inbox per service, and sign up each inbox to the corresponding service.
to simplify this one step further, i've got a throwaway for anything i don't care or plan on just using once, another for tech related, another for all finances related, and so on and so forth. overall, i'm really just managing 5 emails which all can be viewed or organized on gmail and native outlook (don't judge me) app. quite easy
I use aliases from proton, then filters to automatically mark anything unwanted as spam.
Whitelist filters, spam checks, unsubscribe, deselect options when subscribing
I hate to sound like that guy, but Claude has access to Gmail and you can just ask it to sort your mail, figure out which ones need to be responded to, unsubscribe and so on. If you procrastinate on signing up for events like I do, ask it to add a deadline to the calendar to RSVP to the event.
Most of my problem with mail is also replying them and remembering the critical ones from a month back that I opened late at night and forgot to respond to. Claude drafts those for you as well. It's often wrong, but it gets me past the blank page. It's also good at sounding both authoritative and apologetic, just stuff like this which I end up taking hours to draft emails for.
Most of my problem with mail is also replying them and remembering the critical ones from a month back that I opened late at night and forgot to respond to. Claude drafts those for you as well. It's often wrong, but it gets me past the blank page. It's also good at sounding both authoritative and apologetic, just stuff like this which I end up taking hours to draft emails for.
There are also services who auto unsubscribe
Have you considered not signing up for shit?
How do you all handle this? Do you use aliases, a separate "junk" account, or something else entirely? I'm curious to hear what strategies everyone has come up with.