12 Easy Tips for How to Clean up Emails in Gmail & 13 Must-Have Tools

Inbox Zapper

September 5, 2024

•

read

Over time, your Gmail inbox collects a ton of dust. They start as little annoyances, emails that you think you will read or need at some point. Before you know it, those little disorganized emails have become a mountain you must climb to get to your important, organized emails. This clutter slows down your Gmail performance and makes finding important emails difficult. Learning how to clean up emails in Gmail can help you avoid these issues and restore your Gmail to its former glory.

This article will show you precisely how to clean up emails in Gmail so you can get your inbox back under control. To help you clean up your emails, we will specifically introduce you to Inbox Zapper’s Gmail cleanup tool. This tool offers a simple, effective way to help you remove unwanted emails safely without compromising your security or privacy.

‍

How Your Google Storage Works

Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos share 15 GB of storage with every personal Google account. Receiving a message that says your storage is full could affect your ability to send and receive emails in Gmail.

How to Check Your Google Storage

When you get a storage total error, check to see how much storage you have. You may not be out of space, which could be a mistake. Here’s how to check how much space you have in your Google account:

On a web browser, go to Gmail at mail.google.com
Scroll to the bottom of the page to see your storage usage. This includes Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos.
To learn how much of your overall storage usage is specifically from Gmail, click on Launch.

In a new tab, you’ll get an overview of how much storage your Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos use. This way, you can keep track of your available storage space and manage it accordingly.

What Happens When You’re Out of Storage Space?

When you’re over quota, you use more storage space than you have available. If you go over your storage quota:

You can’t upload new files or images to Google Drive.
You can't back up any photos and videos to Google Photos.
Your ability to send and receive email in Gmail can be impacted.
You can’t create new files in collaborative content creation apps like Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, Forms, Vids, and Jamboard. Until you reduce your storage usage, nobody can edit or copy your affected files.
You can’t back up new Recorder files.

Note: You can still sign in and access your Google Account.

How to Get Back Under Quota

Google provides access to storage management tools that help you identify ways to free up storage space. Another option is to download your files to your personal device and then delete them from your cloud storage. If you want more storage space for Gmail, Drive, and Photos, you can upgrade to a larger storage plan with Google One.

‍

What Does It Mean to Clean Your Gmail Inbox?

man using phone infront of a window - How to Clean up Emails in Gmail

Cleaning a Gmail inbox means removing unnecessary emails from your account and organizing what's left. By doing so, you create a structure that helps you minimize the presence of unwanted emails in the future.

Why Is Cleaning My Gmail Inbox Important?

Cleaning your Gmail inbox can reduce your storage space and eliminate email noise. Google gives Gmail users 15 GB of storage space for free, and while that seems like a lot at first, it can fill up quickly. Cleaning your inbox will help free up space, giving you more room for important emails and attachments.

When your inbox is cluttered with messages that don’t matter, it can be hard to find exactly the message you’re looking for when conducting a Gmail search—or tell, at a glance, what your current workload is. Cleaning your inbox eliminates this noise, so you can better focus on the work that matters.

How Can Cleaning My Inbox Reduce Incoming Junk?

Part of your Gmail cleaning exercise will focus on minimizing the amount of incoming junk messages you receive from unwanted or unimportant sources, including blocking emails; this way, you’ll be less distracted by notifications throughout the day, and your inbox will stay cleaner for longer.

Can Cleaning My Inbox Help Me Find Emails I've Overlooked?

Cleaning an inbox is also a great opportunity to find important messages you may have overlooked; are there any people I’ve forgotten to respond to, or threads that died prematurely.

Transform Your Gmail Experience with Inbox Zapper

Experience a Gmail cleanup tool, a more organized inbox with Inbox Zapper—your ultimate Gmail cleanup tool. Effortlessly mass unsubscribe from unwanted emails and newsletters, and delete clutter with just one click. Our tool meticulously scans your inbox to identify email lists and unwanted messages while ensuring your privacy remains intact; your data never leaves your device. Unlike other services, Inbox Zapper is committed to safeguarding your information and never resells your data.

Join over 15,687 users who have collectively cleaned 28,384,924 emails with Inbox Zapper. While exclusive to Gmail, we plan to support additional email services soon.

Discover the easiest way to achieve Inbox Zero—try Inbox Zapper for free today.

5 Reasons to Clean up Your Gmail Inbox

laptop on a bed - How to Clean up Emails in Gmail

1. Enhanced Productivity: Organizing Your Inbox Helps You Work Better and Faster

A disorganized mailbox can raise a few issues during your workday. If you have to go through many new messages each time you start working, you will stay focused on the tasks you have to finish. This is called context-switching, and it kills your productivity.

I lose about 20% of each new task I start. In the long run, such as during a specific demanding project, this causes a lot of time to be wasted. I also take longer to finish important tasks, as new information always fills my inbox. But there are a few more reasons you should clean up Gmail besides more productivity.

2. Better communication: A Clean Inbox Helps You Reply to Emails Faster

No one likes waiting too long for a reply. If your work is mostly email-driven, keeping track of incoming messages from coworkers and managers is even more important. But it’s hard to do that unless you clean up Gmail.

If your mailbox is always cluttered and hard to navigate, emails might slip through the cracks. That causes office delays and miscommunication, such as two people working on the same tasks, missed deadlines, unfinished projects, and unhappy collaborators.

3. Searchability: A Tidy Inbox Helps You Find Important Emails Quickly

Looking through emails only gets harder if you know the exact message you need exists but need help finding it. When you don’t clean up Gmail enough, you risk losing the most important messages you might have to find in the future.

4. Digital space concerns: Cleaning Your Inbox Frees Storage Space

If you’re using the free Google account that provides access to the Google Workspace suite of apps, you have 15GB of storage. This doesn’t seem too little, but as your business needs grow, so does the space it takes on the cloud. Gmail takes up some of this space, especially if you receive many messages daily.

5. Reduced stress and fatigue: An Organized Inbox Lowers Stress

An organized inbox lowers stress by reducing emails to only important conversations. It also enhances focus by taking away distractions from the inbox.

‍

How To Clean Up Emails In Gmail in 12 Simple Steps

man using a laptop - How to Clean up Emails in Gmail

1. Delete Big Attachments

Start by deleting emails with big attachments; these likely take up a disproportionate amount of space in your inbox, reducing your available storage in Gmail. There’s an easy way to do this in Gmail itself.

Click on the dropdown arrow on the right side of the search bar, and you’ll be presented with a list of advanced search criteria.
Check out the size line and select greater than, then define a specific size; I like to start by looking for emails more than 1 MB (see our post on the Gmail attachment size limit).
You could also check the Has attachment box to include only emails with attachments.
Click Search whenever you’re ready, and you’ll generate a list of all emails with huge attachments.
If you need to save any attachments, consider saving them elsewhere and deleting them from your inbox.

2. Delete Entire Categories

Gmail offers some categories you can use to sort your inbox. When active, Gmail will automatically detect incoming emails that meet these category criteria and sort them appropriately. By default, you’ll see a Primary category tab and tabs for Promotions and Social (social media notifications). Head to the Settings menu and click on the Inbox tab; you can add or remove categories. You can add tabs for Updates and Forums if you wish.

I recommend using all relevant categories in your inbox. When you’re ready to clean, you can visit one of these tabs and delete all associated emails

In the upper-left corner, click on the box to Select All messages.
Select all messages in the current view
Head to the top of the screen
Click the prompt to select all conversations in the tab
Delete them immediately

3. Unsubscribe From Annoying Lists

Most of us get at least a few emails every day from lists we subscribed to a long time ago but are no longer relevant—or maybe we ended up on a list we never subscribed to in the first place. There’s a simple solution: unsubscribe. But most of us don’t take the extra time to take ourselves off of these lists— we just delete emails one at a time and roll our eyes whenever we get a new one.

Stop the cycle by using a tool such as Clean Email to generate a list of all your current subscriptions, or use Gmail’s search bar to search for all emails that include the word Unsubscribe in the body. It will take some time to unsubscribe from all these lists manually, but it’s worth the investment.

4. Block Unwanted Senders

Consider blocking any unwanted senders flooding your inbox.

Are there any persistent salespeople who just won’t leave you alone? Consider blocking them.
Are you getting inundated with notifications from one of your project management platforms?

5. Delete by Sender

Clean up your inbox efficiently by looking for senders that no longer matter. For example, is there a client you no longer work with? Would you like to delete all messages from a specific platform, like LinkedIn? If so, click the dropdown arrow on the right side of the Gmail search bar.

In the From field, type the sender's email address you want to delete. If necessary, you can modify your search with additional criteria or search for multiple senders at once, then click Search to generate a full list of emails that meet these requirements. From there, you can delete all these emails at once.

6. Delete by Date

You can head to the advanced search mode of Gmail to look for emails that meet certain criteria. This time, try sorting by date. Do you need emails that you received five years ago? Search for emails within a certain period from a date of your choosing; for example, you could choose to look only at emails sent within one year of 2011, covering all emails from 2010 to 2012, and delete them all at once.

You can also sort your inbox so that the oldest messages are listed first; to do this:

Hover over the numbers you see in the upper-right corner.
The newest will be selected to see your latest messages at the top of your Gmail inbox.
Click Oldest to reverse this and review emails based on the oldest entries.
You can use this sorting feature to modify your other searches, improving your sorting and organizing as you manage your inbox.

7. Delete Content

Are you interested in deleting all emails that have to do with a specific subject or those that include certain words or phrases in the body content? Use Gmail’s advanced search features to hunt these messages down.

Call up the advanced search feature with the dropdown arrow and search for emails with particular words and phrases in the Subject line or those with specific words or phrases in the body. Use quotation marks around complete specific phrases you’re searching for.

8. Create New Labels

In Outlook, users organize emails using a system of folders and subfolders. But in Gmail, things work differently. Rather than physically moving an email to one specific folder or trying to copy it to multiple folders, you’ll create labels and assign those labels however you see fit.

In the left-hand panel of Gmail, you can scroll down to find and click Create label. You can name a label and nest it under a different label. Once created, you can apply this label to any message in your inbox and multiple labels to a single message. You can call a label anytime and review all associated emails. It’s a handy way to organize the valuable emails that remain in your inbox—and you can even use them as part of your automatic filtering system, which we’ll set up in step 10.

9. Make Use of Organization Features

Gmail has features that make it easier for email users to stay organized. For example, you can mark emails as read or unread to determine their status, use stars to immediately mark valuable emails to keep long-term and use importance markers to identify emails that still require a response.

You can even set up additional colors for each organizational feature in Gmail’s advanced settings if you need more options. Use these consistently to reap their total value.

10. Create New Filters

Hopefully, by this point, your Gmail inbox will be mostly clean. But how can you ensure that it remains clean indefinitely? You can apply your new organization system consistently to new emails as they arrive, but this can take a lot of time, and you need to be more perfectly consistent. Setting up automatic filters for incoming messages may be better.

Automating Email Management with Gmail Filters

Conducting an advanced search for emails that meet specific criteria (like containing certain words in the subject line or being sent by a particular sender), you can create a filter for all emails that match these criteria in the future; from there, you can tell Gmail to automatically label them or mark them in a specific way, or even tell Gmail to archive the message immediately.

With the right filters, your Gmail inbox can be entirely self-cleaning. For more information, read our full guide on setting up Gmail filters.

11. Take Advantage of Email Templates

Another problem when you start to clean up Gmail is that you often need to reply to multiple people, but the number of messages can be overwhelming. For example, with a helpdesk email account, you have to solve multiple problems simultaneously, but replying to each concerned sender takes a lot of time. If you find yourself rewriting similar emails repeatedly, you should implement Gmail canned responses.

Using Canned Responses to Streamline Email Replies

Canned responses are pre-written templates you can add to your Gmail inbox and then insert into replies. This makes it easier to write back quickly and reduces the number of unread emails.

If you’re using a shared inbox like Drag, you can also automate these canned responses with custom fields. When a client emails a sales team, for instance, their message will be replied to instantly, with all the required information, instead of staying in their inbox until someone has the time to look.

12. Archive Conversations

Part of the problem with a cluttered inbox is that your old emails stay there, taking up visual space. While you may be unable to delete them, archiving is a good idea, given that emails contain helpful information. There are two key steps to using email archives to clean up Gmail.

I archive any finished conversation I need to revisit. For example, if I were having an email conversation about a project my department has been working on but now it’s done, I’d archive it.

Simply click the archive button on the top left of the message. It will be hidden until there’s another reply to the thread or if I search for it.
Archive messages over time. Go to the search bar and search before:[date] with the date I’d prefer. Then, select all messages that fit this filter and click the archive button.

13 Top Tools to Clean up Your Overwhelmed Gmail Inbox

1. Inbox Zapper: One-Click Cleanup for Your Gmail Inbox

Experience a Gmail cleanup tool and a more organized inbox with Inbox Zapper—your ultimate Gmail cleanup tool. Effortlessly mass unsubscribe from unwanted emails and newsletters and delete clutter with just one click. Our tool meticulously scans your inbox to identify email lists and unwanted messages while ensuring your privacy remains intact; your data never leaves your device. Unlike other services, Inbox Zapper is committed to safeguarding your information and never resells your data.

Join over 15,687 users who have collectively cleaned 28,384,924 emails with Inbox Zapper. While exclusive to Gmail, we plan to support additional email services soon.

Discover the easiest way to achieve Inbox Zero—try Inbox Zapper for free today.

2. SaneBox: AI-Powered Email Cleanup Tool

SaneBox is an advanced email cleaner app developed to address the email overload caused by spam and unnecessary mail. Thanks to the smart folders and SaneBlackHole AI capabilities, essential/unnecessary messages can be identified and organized according to the folders created.

3. Clean Email: Smart Automation for Email Management

Cleaning your Gmail inbox takes more than just removing unwanted emails. It’s also about managing your incoming messages to prevent future overload. Clean Email helps users:

Manage
Sort
clean their email addresses

Quick Clean can trash categorized emails and use a bulk email cleaner to address overload management. The best part with Clean Email is the Auto Clean and smart folders for automated email cleaning. Apart from cleaning, automation is also available to block, mute, unsubscribe, and archive emails.

4. Unroll.Me: The Subscription Email Cleanup Tool

Unroll.ME, while available in web versions, I am curated more as a basic email app for cleaning. Regardless of the platform, the tools are dedicated to addressing the issue of email overload. The built-in browser is handy for quickly assessing email address content in rich text.

It supports almost every email address based on IMAP. Unroll.Me's bulk unsubscribe feature allows users to handle email activity efficiently by unsubscribing multiple subscriptions simultaneously. It also provides a rollup feature to organize unread messages in smart folders without unsubscribing.

5. Mailstrom: Tackle Your Gmail Overload

Mailstrom is a standard email cleaning app designed specifically for the web. It allows users to unsubscribe and delete thousands of emails with just a few clicks.

Mailstrom specializes in curated categories that are capable of identifying and organizing emails. When it comes to cleaning, the tools are specifically for:

Unsubscribing
Deleting
Archiving
Moving the rest in batches

All with one click through Chill, Expire, and Block.

6. Cleanfox: Targeting Newsletters to Clean Your Inbox

Cleanfox is an email cleaner tool that addresses email overload caused by newsletters. Unlike conventional email cleaner websites or apps, Cleanfox offers a twist by allowing users to use it through App Clip or Instant App.

It can be used on mobile platforms without installation. Its primary function is to identify and help delete or block unnecessary newsletters that clutter the mailbox. Cleanfox offers an option to either automatically delete all emails from a selected sender, delete only received emails, or keep the newsletter.

7. Leave Me Alone: A Simple Approach to Unsubscribing

Leave Me Alone offers a comprehensive solution for newsletter-related email overload. The cleaning process involves viewing all subscription emails in a single list, choosing which to unsubscribe from, and having the email cleaner handle the rest.

Apart from cleaning, Leave Me Alone also organizes through the Rollups, which deliver newsletters daily or weekly according to a set schedule. It supports almost every email address based on IMAP and works on any platform with a browser.

8. Trimbox: The AI Assistant for Cleaning Your Inbox

Trimbox is an engaging and unique email AI assistant that aims to clean email inboxes with just a single click. It scans the inbox for email lists and removes unwanted emails through the cleaner tool.

Regarding subscriptions, Trimbox allows you to unsubscribe from any list without opening the unread message and offers the ability to bulk delete past emails from a sender/marketplace with just one click.

9. Shortwave: A Free Gmail Cleanup Tool

Shortwave is a free Gmail cleanup tool designed for productivity. It offers several handy features that make organizing your inbox and staying on task easy. What makes this best free Gmail cleaner stand out from the rest of the options on this list is its overall approach to organization.

Instead of lumping messages into folders based on commonalities, you create email threads so everything you need is in a single row. The app will automatically do this, but you can manually reorganize threads or combine them anytime.

10. Mailman: A Unique Approach to Gmail Organization

As an exclusive Gmail cleaner, Mailman is optimized to simplify organizing your Google’s inbox. Like other apps to clean Gmail inbox, Mailman allows you to block specific senders or remove yourself from subscription lists. You can use the VIP List to ensure you always see important messages from particular senders or emails that contain keywords you specify.

11. Triage: Gamifying Your Gmail Cleanup

Triage is unique in the way it allows you to clean your inbox. It stacks up your unread emails as a pile of cards. Swiping left archives the email, swiping right keeps it, and tapping on it expands it. It helps you stick to the concept of inbox zero. One downside is that their app is only available on iOS.

12. Edison Mail: A Smart Email Cleanup Tool

Edison Mail offers an AI-based assistant that categorizes all your emails in its email app. The email cleaner app has a widget that offers a carousel for suggested unsubscribes.

Features:

It has an AI assistant that suggests unsubscriptions as a carousel.
It lets you view all your subscriptions in one place and unsubscribe from them.
It automatically tracks which newsletters you aren't reading for suggestions.

13. ZenMail: A New Way to Manage Your Incoming Emails

ZenMail is a Firefox and Chrome extension that helps users to screen and organize new emails. When you receive a new email, a screener will ask what you want to do with subsequent emails from the sender. You can avoid unwanted newsletters easily. As messages come in, you can archive, delete, or even designate a specific folder or label for them. You don’t have to be concerned about losing crucial emails when you remove a whole email folder.

Clean Up Your Inbox With One-Click with Inbox Zapper's Gmail Cleanup Tool for Free Today

Unsubscribing from unwanted email lists will help you regain control of your Gmail inbox, and Inbox Zapper makes the process easy.

Unsubscribing from Email Lists Made Easy

Streamline Your Inbox: Instantly scan and unsubscribe from all unwanted email lists with a single click.
Delete Clutter: Remove all emails from these lists before unsubscribing for a pristine inbox.
Effortless Control: Regain command of your Gmail inbox and enjoy a cleaner, more organized email experience.

Experience Inbox Zapper's Gmail Cleanup Tool for Free Today—the easiest way to achieve Inbox Zero.

‍

📬 😩

Tired of dealing with junk mail?

The easiest way to unsubscribe from junk and delete old emails. Use Inbox Zapper to get your email back under control.

Get Inbox Zapper