How I Significantly Simplified My Email Inbox

I have a big confession to make. I’m somewhat of a hoarder. A hoarder of emails, that is. While I have no problem (or at least less of a problem) parting with physical items, for whatever reason, I have a tendency to maintain a death grip on my emails — and an even larger issue of letting them pile up to extreme amounts.

Well, that entire paragraph should be written in the past tense, because my husband held a welcomed intervention of sorts to address my email hoarding issue. There are three main factors we identified that contributed to my out-of-control, overflowing inbox. I’m talking, 4,000 emails — only a handful of which I wanted to receive or that contained any necessary, relevant information.

First, I was subscribed to WAY too many publications, newsletters, brand promotional email lists, etc. I gave my email address out to anyone who wanted it — but even further, I wouldn’t spend any time monitoring what junk was appearing over and over again — and taking the 2 seconds required to find the “unsubscribe” button.

Secondly, I refused to delete anything. I had (and still kind of have — I’m working on it!) a strange aversion to clicking the “delete” button on an email. For some reason, I fear that Holly 5 years down the road will need to access an email about a “30% off sale that ends today!” No! Absolutely not. Delete.

Thirdly, I had no structure. Or plan. Or a habit of regularly clearing out my emails.

Digital clutter is sneaky. While our physical lives may be in order, we may have complete disarray within our inboxes, on our computer desktops, or in our Google Photos. While these digital storage units aren’t visible to the eye, they can cause an underlying sense of anxiety, especially when we need to regularly sift through them to find something we actually need. This would be like searching for a t-shirt amidst a closet filled to the ceiling with a pile of crumpled-up clothes.

Plus, our inboxes can be a trap for unnecessary advertisements urging us to buy the latest and greatest. We already experience enough an inundation of consumerism propaganda elsewhere — why add in this personal pool that is slowly (or rapidly, in my case) collecting targeted ads and links leading directly to an online shop?

I’m going to take you through the steps I took — largely, well solely, with my husband’s help — to simplify my email inbox.

NOTE: I call out some specific settings, which all apply to Gmail. But most email providers have similar options you can find by searching for a tutorial!

Unsubscribe.

I would submit that this is one of the most important steps to achieving a simplified inbox, so I’ll start here. Unsubscribe to nearly every publication (unless you actually read them) and every single brand sending you sales and deals on the regular. It’s much easier to block out tempting ads to “check out the latest styles” or “don’t miss this sale” when you can minimize as many as possible — starting with your inbox. Cutting out this consistent stream of “buy, buy, buy” can help you consume less stuff you think you need.

On a practical note, we went about unsubscribing the manual way. Meaning, we found a contender, scrolled to the bottom of the email, clicked “unsubscribe” then went through whatever steps were required. However, there are various services you can use to do so a bit quicker (like Unroll.Me — I’ve used it before)! PS Unroll.Me doesn’t fully unsubscribe you; it’s more of a filter that grabs all the emails you tell it to and hides them from view. But it’s definitely a good quick fix!

Again, I was RUTHLESS with what I unsubscribed to. I pretty much unsubscribed to everything. However, there were a few I didn’t want to so I didn’t hurt feelings if it was a smaller brand or friend (news flash: people can see when you unsubscribe to them!), so I opted to “filter” those instead. And if you have a newsletter, NO I did not filter yours... :)

Delete old emails.

As mentioned, I have an extremely difficult time clicking “delete” on emails — even if it’s the junkiest piece of junk mail possible. But, Brandon held my hand and helped me realize it wasn’t the end of the world to delete an expired ad from a store that doesn’t even exist anymore sent in 2017.

Here’s what we did to mass delete many emails at once. After you’ve unsubscribed to a publication/brand/whatever, search that brand in your inbox (type “From:[Name]” to get more specific). Then, click the check box at the top to select all emails from this business/person (and there’s a button you can select that grabs ALL emails from them — “Select all conversations that match this search”). Take a few deep breaths, then click the trash can symbol. Didn’t that feel good? Now, keep repeating this until that number begins to drop.

Create folders.

As you’re going through old emails, you may find ones you actually do want to hold onto. Create folders to store them away for easier access down the road. I have a few that may apply to you: Tickets, Receipts, Flights/Travel, House, and Special (this one’s for sentimental ones, mostly from my dad!). If you’re anything like (the old) me, you have a ton of emails sitting in your inbox even though they have been “dealt with” so to speak. Put these emails in storage to get them out of the way! Or again, delete them if you won’t need to refer to them in the future.

Create filters.

Like I said, there are some people you don’t want to “unsubscribe” to. But! There’s another solution — a workaround, if you will. You can create filters that immediately directs emails to a certain place as soon as they hit your inbox. This can be “archive” or “delete” or even to go into a folder, if you do intend to read them but don’t want them cluttering your inbox. Follow these simple steps to create filters in your inbox! Pro Tip: When you’re going through the unsubscribe process, create a list on a document on the side of all the email addresses you’d like to filter, splitting them into groups for “delete,” “archive” or whatever else. That way, you can set up all your filters at one time at the end!

Get to zero.

This may sound crazy or far-fetched. It did to me! But we did it. After several hours of doing all of the above steps, we got that pesky number in parentheses on my Inbox tab to a big fat zero. It was so satisfying to know I had zero people awaiting my response (well, probably a few I had accidentally missed) and that I was all caught up — things were filed away. I also changed my background image to something peaceful to celebrate this achievement.

Make a plan moving forward.

Much like decluttering your physical belongings, there’s a level of maintenance you have to do to “keep the peace” in your inbox. It’s likely you didn’t unsubscribe from everything, and you’ll have to be vigilant to hit that “unsubscribe” button when unwanted emails come in. Plus, make a daily or weekly habit to sort through your inbox — responding to the important emails, deleting unneeded items, and filing dealt with emails into their appropriate folders.

What’s Your Style?

Are you an email hoarder or a recovering one? Or do you have this whole inbox thing mastered? I would love to know if you have any tips for achieving a simpler, cleaner inbox!