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Do you have thousands of unread emails? Want to take control of your email inbox and declutter everything?
Don’t feel overwhelmed! We’ve got the perfect solution for you. Using simple shortcuts and organizing strategies can help your emails take care of themselves, allowing you to keep your inbox looking neat and organized with minimal effort on your part.
Why you shouldn’t have email clutter
Email clutter can occur when your inbox gets various email notifications from different businesses and accounts, making it difficult to track which notification is important.
The average person has two accounts: personal and business. However, people often combine both accounts into one inbox to simplify things. The average worker can waste over 21 minutes by over checking emails.
Combining multiple business and personal accounts into one inbox can create an unhealthy work-life balance, not to mention making it more difficult to find a specific email.
Getting rid of your email clutter allows you to take control of your inbox.
How to declutter email inboxes
1. Delete or archive emails.
This method is one of the fastest and easiest ways to eliminate your email clutter quickly. Before deleting or archiving anything, think about if it will be needed within the next 30 days before making your first move.
Here are three easy steps to quickly get rid of unwanted emails:
- Go into your mailbox’s search bar and search for a specific address or unread messages.
- Click the “select all” or a “Select all conversations that match this search,” depending on the email service.
- Hit delete or the trash icon.
For an extra step, you can go into your trash folder to immediately and permanently trash everything.
2. Unsubscribe to unwanted commercial newsletters.
Unsubscribing to marketing or promotional emails is one of the more tedious tasks that one must take to declutter your email.
Most businesses place their unsubscribe button at the very bottom of their email.
To unsubscribe, open one of their emails, scroll down, and find the word “unsubscribe.”
Some email services, like Apple and Gmail, allow users to unsubscribe from mailing lists with a click of a button.
But be careful. Before hitting that “unsubscribe” button, see if anything looks suspicious. If it does, do not click anything within the email.
See our next option to know what to do.
3. Designate emails as spam.
According to Statista, 60% of the world’s email is spam, and spam messages can account for 45.37% of email traffic.
Most email services come with the ability to filter spam emails into your spam folder, which can be extremely helpful in managing the influx of potential junk mail. This process occurs when your email service provider recognizes spam trigger words in the subject line or when other users mark the message as spam. It can also occur if there is a high level of spelling and grammatical errors.
However, some messages will pass the spam automation filter and end up in your inbox. If you open it and it looks like the image below, do not click anything.
Clicking on any text or buttons within the email could result in your device getting a virus, or your personal information getting stolen.
If you and enough email accounts mark the message and address as spam, it will notify your email software to analyze the message and where it is coming from to help further protect other users. Doing this action will allow the email software to improve its spam filtering technology and eliminate the need to declutter your inbox manually.
How to organize your email inbox
Here are a few tips to help your email inbox stay organized and decluttered.
1. Create rules to filter your inbox.
Filters and rules are automations for your inbox that automatically move specific labels or a specific email address into the correct folder.
These features make it easier to keep track of your important emails, meaning you will spend less time manually sorting, searching, and cleaning your inbox.
Every email software has this capability. Below is an example for Gmail, but you can also check how to create a rule for Microsoft’s Outlook inbox.
2. Organize by folders or labels.
All email software allows you to create folders and labels to help you organize where each specific email should go, making the search process infinitely easier.
After creating your new folder and label, you can automatically move any emails to where they need to be to stay organized.
Then incoming emails with the specific address or subject line will automatically sort into the correct folder.
3. Send your receipts to a separate account with Shoeboxed
Receiving receipts to your email can be a hassle to sort and search through. The right receipt management software can help you automatically move those receipts into the correct account.
For example, Shoeboxed has the following email features to help you track receipts: Shoeboxed’s Gmail plugin will auto-import your digital receipts to your Shoeboxed dashboard. Additionally, you can send receipts directly to your Shoeboxed email address, so you don’t have to worry about managing it all in your personal or business inbox. Afterward, you can create conditions and rules to automatically delete any email with receipts after they have been processed in your account.
Frequently asked questions
Decluttering your inbox will help you get rid of unwanted emails and keep your inbox clean. Additionally, having an organized inbox lets you:
• Easily search for what you need
• Have more data space
• Feel accomplished
• Build up decluttering habits
An organized email inbox allows you to search and recover important emails quickly. You can also quickly find any specific communication between you and your team to improve productivity and streamline the workflow.
In closing
Decluttering your inbox can be simple. By creating filters and conditions, all your unwanted emails can be deleted with a click of a button. Additionally, keeping your inbox clean and organized can be easy by using labels and folders so that you don’t have to do everything manually.
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About Shoeboxed!
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