10-Step Guide on How to Clean Gmail Inbox & 17 Best Cleaner Apps

By
Inbox Zapper
September 5, 2024
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If you’re like most people, your Gmail inbox is a mess. Maybe you have thousands of unread emails scattered across dozens of tabs. Or dozens of emails with long-forgotten newsletters cluttering your inbox. No matter your situation, an overflowing Gmail inbox causes stress and makes it difficult to find important emails when you need them. In turn, this can impact your productivity and organization. Cleaning your Gmail inbox doesn’t have to be a time-consuming or overwhelming task. 

In this blog, we’ll outline the best steps for how to clean up emails in gmail to help you get organized. You’ll also discover how Inbox Zapper, a Gmail cleanup tool, can help you achieve your inbox goals faster.

What Does Cleaning Your Gmail Inbox Mean & Its Importance

Gmail - How To Clean Gmail Inbox

Cleaning a Gmail inbox means organizing, deleting, and archiving emails to create a well-structured email account. 

It’s not just about removing old messages but also about categorizing emails for easy access. Rather than having emails from work-related projects scattered all over your inbox, you can delete, archive, and organize emails into designated folders to improve productivity.

Why Cleaning Your Gmail Inbox Matters

Many Gmail users don’t realize there can be serious consequences for allowing their inboxes to get out of control. Sure, Google offers a whopping 15 GB of free storage space for Gmail users, but when your emails start piling up, it can become harder to find important information that may be buried in the clutter. 

Getting organized can help you locate critical emails faster, improving productivity and reducing stress.

The Benefits of Cleaning Your Gmail Inbox

Cleaning your Gmail inbox can significantly improve your productivity and reduce stress. Here are some of the benefits of giving your Gmail account a thorough cleanup:

Finding Missed Messages

You may have missed email messages due to the clutter in your inbox. Cleaning your inbox means reviewing and responding to overlooked messages promptly.

Reduce Unwanted Emails

You may get a lot of emails from sources you aren’t bothered by. Cleaning your inbox means you can delete many of these unwanted messages and prevent them from distracting you in the future.

Eliminate Distractions

When searching your Gmail inbox, it may take a lot of work to find the really important messages. You’ll be able to more clearly:

  • See your present workload 
  • Find the messages that matter

Gain More Storage

Deleting unwanted messages frees up space for important emails. If you can find more space for my important emails, you’ll be less obligated to sign up for more storage. 

4 Gmail Inbox Cleanup Principles and Best Practices

Person Holding a Mobile - How To Clean Gmail Inbox

1. Clean: Regularly Delete Irrelevant and Unnecessary Emails

Cleaning your Gmail inbox doesn't have to be a daunting task. Your email cleanup will be quick and easy if you tackle it regularly. Start by deleting irrelevant emails. These messages you certainly won’t read or need in the future.

Outdated Emails

They could be old promotional emails, notifications from apps you no longer use, or even outdated work emails about a project you have long completed. Next, move on to emails that are important but are no longer helpful. You should keep emails containing receipts or notes from colleagues, but after a while, they get old. 

Deleting these emails is a good idea to keep your inbox light. Don’t forget to check your tabs, as your essential emails could be hiding there.

2. Unsubscribe: Assess and Cancel Unwanted Newsletters and Promotions

Email subscriptions can clutter your inbox. You might sign up for a newsletter for a one-time offer one day. The next thing you know, you’re getting daily or weekly emails from the list taking over your inbox. 

Regularly assess these subscriptions and opt-out from ones that are no longer valuable to you. Use the Unsubscribe link at the bottom of these emails to stop the following email from coming to your inbox.

3. Organize: Use Labels and Categories to Sort Your Emails

Using sorting, categories, and labels can significantly improve email management efficiency. They facilitate the easy tracking and retrieval of specific emails.

4. Automate: Create Filters to Clean Your Gmail Inbox

Use filters and email rules to automatically handle routine tasks and clean Gmail inbox, reducing manual labor and ensuring a smoother email experience.

Related Reading

3 Gmail Inbox Cleanup Styles

Gmail Dashboard - How To Clean Gmail Inbox

Method 1: Quick Clean

If you're short on time but need a quick revamp of your cluttered inbox, here are some quick steps:

Get rid of old emails

Gmail gives users plenty of storage space for emails and attachments, but it has one downside: some people always keep their old emails, allowing them to pile up until they run out of available storage space and can no longer receive new emails. 

If this sounds familiar, the best thing you can do is get rid of them. 

  • Use the "Search" bar to locate older emails (e.g., older_than:1y). 
  • Once located, you can quickly delete these in bulk. This search option tells Gmail to find and show all emails sent or received over one year ago.

Alternatively, you can specify a specific date or year. A good rule of thumb is to delete all emails older than five years without opening them first, but caution is advised.

Delete Promotions and Social Notifications

By using Gmail categories (Inbox tabs like Social, Forums, Promotions, etc. where Gmail automatically sorts your emails into and which you can find by clicking the gear button in the top right corner, then Settings → Inbox), you can easily manage large numbers of emails with a few clicks.

Promotional Email Cleanup

You can quickly delete all emails under the Promotions category, which contains marketing emails and newsletters you are subscribed to. Go through the Promotions tab and delete all unwanted promotional emails. Repeat with emails in the Social tab.

Caution: Before you delete all Promotions in Gmail (or everything under Social), we recommend ensuring no critical emails are filed in that category. If the category contains nothing important, click All in the select menu in the top left corner. It may be so that only 50 emails will be selected; a convenient option is highlighted in blue above your message list. 

Smart Folder Cleanup

Selecting all [number] conversations in Promotions allows you to choose all conversations at once. A yellow pop-up message will appear above the category tabs, stating that only the conversations on this page are selected. Since Gmail categories are quite limited, you may consider using a dedicated Gmail cleaner app like Clean Email to group your messages according to their type, purpose, and other characteristics:

  • Seasonal Sales
  • Productivity Tools
  • Travel

Here's how you can leverage Clean Email's Smart Folders: 

  • Navigate to the Home dashboard in Clean Email and scroll down the left panel until you find the Smart Folders section. 
  • Select the Smart Folder that fits your needs, such as Productivity Tools. 
  • Select one or multiple groups of messages and apply your preferred action, such as Mark Read, Archive, Trash, and more.

This allows for bulk management of these groups, eliminating the need to move each email manually.

Delete all

Be careful with this one. If you are sure that no important emails are in your Gmail Inbox anymore and you're good to clean it up entirely, you are good to go. Use Gmail's Select All feature to select all emails in a tab, then click on Delete (the trash can icon) for a speedy cleanup. Gmail allows you to select up to 50 emails simultaneously, so the process can get slightly manual. You can use filters in Gmail instead to make it faster.

Note: Although it may seem fast, there is a way to boost the process. Inbox Zapper, for example, can significantly reduce the time spent on email management. A Quick Clean can save up to 50% of the time by automating many bulk actions, showing emails already sorted in groups, and providing you with Cleaning Suggestions.

Method 2: Deep Clean

If you're ready to undertake a comprehensive Gmail cleaning session, follow these steps:

  • Start by deleting old email messages, similar to the Quick Clean approach. Jump to it.
  • Fine-tune it and, apart from old emails, define and delete emails from senders you no longer care about.

Suppose you’ve been using Gmail for a long time. In that case, you’ve probably accumulated hundreds and thousands of emails from senders you no longer care about.

Using Wildcards for Efficient Email Cleanup in Gmail

With wildcards, you can easily find all emails from past senders to clean out Gmail inbox, even if you don’t know their email addresses. In Gmail, the wildcard is the asterisk (*), serving as a placeholder for other characters. Let’s say you want to delete all emails from Myspace, and I don’t care whether they are from other Myspace users, Myspace support, or the social network itself.

Instead of searching for emails from user@myspace.com, support@myspace.com, and email@myspace.com, 

  • I can use the asterisk followed by the domain name (like this: *@myspace.com), and Gmail will display all emails from myspace.com. 
  • Then select the “select all messages” checkbox and delete all emails from Myspace in a few clicks.

Note: With Clean Email, you can do a bit more by setting up rules for a particular sender:

  • Block the user
  • Move their emails to a certain folder
  • Keep only the newest emails from them

Automatically clears messages from flagged senders when they hit your inbox.

Manage Your Subscriptions

Use the Unsubscribe button to opt out of newsletters and promotional emails that no longer serve any purpose. The unsubscribe email mechanism for Gmail cleanup is usually straightforward. 

  • Just open the email
  • Scroll down
  • Click the unsubscribe link

Finding and Unsubscribing from Unwanted Newsletters

This link is usually tiny to prevent accidental clicks. If it takes too long to find it, press CTRL+F and search for the term “unsubscribe” in the body of the email. If searching for unsubscribe links (which may or may not be included with unwanted newsletters) sounds like a lot of work, we'd recommend using a third-party Gmail cleaner app like Inbox Zapper. 

Inbox Zapper: Your Unsubscribe Solution

Its Unsubscriber feature is a perfect choice because it automatically captures all newsletters and shows them in one place. If you decide to unsubscribe from unwanted subscriptions, Inbox Zapper sends requests on your behalf. While waiting for the sender to process the request, Inbox Zapper blocks further emails from them, so you are not distracted by promotional junk anymore.

To unsubscribe from unwanted marketing messages using Inbox Zapper:

  • Go to: https://www.inboxzapper.com/, and log in
  • Click on Unsubscriber from the list of features on the left
  • Click the Unsubscribe button next to each address from which you no longer wish to receive messages. 

Unsubscribe From Emails With Inbox Zapper

You can pause some subscriptions to stop receiving emails from them until they are necessary again.

Note: Be cautious when dealing with unsolicited emails and spam. Clicking unsubscribe links or using email services like Inbox Zapper's Gmail Unsubscriber may not stop professional spammers.

Clicking fake unsubscribe links can alert spammers that your email address is active. Instead, consider creating rules to block entire domain names used by spammers.

Organize Your Incoming Emails

Create labels and categories to organize your inbox. You can label emails based on the sender or topic for easy retrieval later. The most crucial advantage of label-based email systems like Gmail is that they dynamically make it easier to organize email messages based on your personal preferences.

Since Gmail labels can be color-coded, they reduce inbox clutter by making it more scannable. This is how to clean out Gmail by adding labels: 

  • Go to your Gmail and scroll down the left pane until you see More
  • Click on it
  • Click Create a new label and give it a name
  • Click Create a new label and give it a name 
  • Click Create

You can now add the newly created label to any email by clicking on the Label icon and selecting it. Click on the Label icon and select it. Keep in mind that you can assign multiple labels to a single message.

Automate Email Tasks

Those who receive many emails daily need to clean their Gmail inboxes regularly to prevent them from piling on and gradually becoming unmanageable. If this is your scenario, we recommend you look at how to filter emails in Gmail and automate specific time-consuming Gmail email management tasks.

Here, we'll briefly show how you can create any Gmail filter on the go:

  • Log in to your account
  • Click the Show Search Options icon in the search box at the top
  • Enter your filter criteria
  • Click Create filter
  • Choose what you'd like the filter to do
  • Click Create Filter again

Method 3: Keeping Gmail Clean Constantly

Maintaining a clean Gmail inbox necessitates regular attention. Make it a part of your routine by following these strategies:

Schedule Regular Cleanups

Set a recurring schedule (daily, weekly, or monthly) to clean your inbox—Leverage Gmail's email rules and filters to:

  • Automate this process 
  • Save time

Monitor Your Subscriptions

Regularly evaluate your subscriptions. Unsubscribe from those that no longer provide value to keep your inbox clutter-free.

Label and Categorize

Take a minute to label and categorize new emails as they arrive. It's a small investment of time to streamline email retrieval and management in the long run.

Update and Refine Automation

Continually refine your filters and rules for optimal automation. Consider screening emails from new senders, similar to call screening. Emails from unfamiliar sources are quarantined until you decide to allow or block them. Clean Email's Screener feature offers this functionality, providing an extra layer of organization and security for your inbox.

InboxZapper: Your Gmail Cleaning Tool

Incorporating a tool like InboxZapper can provide valuable support and save time. This Gmail cleaner tool:

  • Sorts your emails into folders for faster processing
  • Offers a variety of filter options
  • Provides cleaning suggestions
  • Helps automate routine tasks—all contributing to a consistently clean Gmail inbox

Your choice between Quick Clean, Deep Clean, or maintaining a consistently clean Gmail inbox depends on your immediate needs and long-term productivity goals. Third-party Gmail cleaning tools can make the process faster and more efficient. However, remember that every step towards a cleaner Gmail inbox is a stride forward in boosting your overall productivity.

10-Step Guide on How To Clean Gmail Inbox

Person Using Computer - How To Clean Gmail Inbox

1. Remove Large Attachments

Start your Gmail inbox cleanup by removing space hogs: emails with large attachments. These messages can take up a lot of storage in your Gmail account and contribute to a cluttered inbox. Here’s how to find and delete them:

  • Click the Show search options icon on the right in your Gmail search field
  • In the dropdown menu, select Size
  • Pick larger than and choose a size limit (e.g., 5 MB) 

You can also limit your search in Gmail to emails with attachments by selecting the has attachment option in the advanced search panel. To prevent critical data loss, store important attachments elsewhere, like on Google Drive, before deleting large emails.

2. Remove Entire Categories

You can also clean up your Gmail inbox by removing all of the categories of emails. Gmail automatically sorts incoming messages into categories based on their characteristics. You can find these categories on the left side of the Gmail inbox. Here, you can click the Categories button to see several categories like:

  • Social
  • Updates
  • Promotions

Category Cleanup

You can also remove or add categories on your Settings menu. Cleaning out an entire category can help you quickly wipe out many emails. Once you’ve decided to delete emails, select the category you want to clean and say Promotions. Then click on the box on the upper left side to select all emails shown on the page. A message will appear at the top when you do this: Select all X conversations in Promotions.

Click on the message to select all the emails in the category. Then, click the delete button to remove all the emails. This process can easily wipe out the entire spam folder or other categories.

3. Unsubscribe From Lists

Many people receive emails daily from lists they once joined but have not been interested in. Sometimes, we unwittingly subscribe to newsletters we may not have wanted. Unsubscribing is the best solution, rather than trying to delete one email at a time.

You can do this in two ways. You can use a tool like Clean Email to generate a list of your email subscriptions or utilize the Gmail search bar to look up emails with the keyword Unsubscribe in their body. Manually unsubscribing from the lists can take up a bit of time, but you will be able to free up a lot of space.

4. Block Unwanted Senders

Sometimes, some senders may not offer you an option to unsubscribe. In such a case, blocking these spammers is a great alternative. This will decrease your number of unread emails. If you are trying to block one particular unwanted email sender, open the mail in question. On the right-hand top side, you will find the More button (the three vertical dots). 

Block Spammers

Click on it and tap on Block <sender name> to block the spammer. It’s better to block someone from sending you emails altogether if you prefer not to have any communication with them. This guarantees that you get emails from people you want to keep in touch with and can keep the Gmail inbox organized. For unblocking someone:

  • Go to Settings
  • Select See all settings
  • Choose Filters and Blocked Addresses
  • Check the box on the left side of the sender you want to unblock and select the Unblock button on the right

5. Delete Email By Date

One thing that can take up a lot of storage space in your Gmail account is old emails. You might have old messages, some even 10 years or older, sitting idly in your inbox, eating up space. Use Gmail’s advanced search function to filter out emails between a specific date range. Skim over them to see if you need any old email, and delete everything else.

6. Erase By Content

You can delete emails that contain certain phrases or words in their body or specific emails that deal with a particular subject. Again, use the advanced search function to look for emails containing specific words in the content or subject line. Use quotation marks around the words you are looking for.

7. Create New Gmail Labels

To keep your inbox organized, you can make new labels in Gmail and assign them any way you feel is right. On your Gmail’s left-hand side section, there is an option More. Click on it, then select Create new label. On the small window that pops up, choose a name and decide whether or not to nest the new label under another existing label. 

After creating the label, you can add it to any specific message in the inbox. You can even add more than one label to a particular message. This will help you easily group all emails under one label.

8. Remove By Sender

You can filter emails in your Gmail by using the advanced search option. Click Advanced search and then type in the sender’s email address in the From section. You can also include other details in the search, like:

  • Size
  • Date
  • Attachments, to sort the emails of the particular sender and delete the emails you don’t need

Marketing emails can be deleted very quickly in this way.

9. Use Organization Features

There are plenty of features available on Gmail that you can use to keep your inbox organized. You can label emails as unread or read, mark certain emails as necessary to return to them, etc. There are also different color-coded stars you can use to organize your emails. Use them frequently to keep your inbox structured.

10. Create New Gmail Filters

Organizing new emails as and when you get them can become tedious. Setting up automatic filtering for incoming emails might be a better method. To create a new Gmail filter:

  • Go to Settings
  • Click on See All settings
  • Select Filters and Blocked addresses

Click on the option Create a new filter, and in the pop-up window, add the correct details to filter the incoming mails.

Related Reading

How Do I Delete Thousands of Emails in Gmail?

Person Using  Laptop - How To Clean Gmail Inbox

Cleaning up your Gmail account doesn't have to take forever. Follow the steps below to delete emails in bulk and speed up your inbox. How to delete all read or all unread emails on Gmail:

  • In a web browser, open Gmail and log in to your account.
  • In the search bar at the top of the screen, type label: read to display all read emails or label: unread to display all unread emails.
  • Click the Select All box at the top of the list of emails. This will select all emails on the current page — up to 50 emails. To mass delete all emails in this category and not just those on the first page, you can also click Select all conversations that match this search.
  • Click the Delete icon, shaped like a trash can, at the top of the email list.

Quick tip: If you're trying to clear your inbox to get Gmail to run faster, try clearing out the cache instead.

How To Delete Promotions On Gmail

Promotional emails are emails sent by companies or organizations to consumers with the general goal of selling products. These emails are automatically filed in your Promotions tab to keep them separate from your primary inbox. You may get promotional emails from retailers after purchasing on their website or from a blog after signing up for their mailing list. 

Promotional Email Settings

This differs from Spam, at least as far as Gmail is concerned because promotional emails generally mean you've established a relationship with the company that sent it. You can do this by subscribing to a service, buying a product, or signing up for a mailing list. You can change your spam settings to fine-tune how Gmail treats that kind of email if it's unwanted.

  • In a web browser, open Gmail and log in to your account, if needed.
  • Click the Promotions category at the top of the page, above your list of emails.
  • Click the Select all box to the left of the Refresh button. This will select all promotional emails on the current page (up to 50 entries). To delete all emails in this category, click Select all Promotions conversations.
  • Click the Delete icon, shaped like a trash can, at the top of the email list.

Quick tip: If there are promotional emails you want to save, manually review your Promotions category and drag the ones you want into a different folder before mass-deleting.

How To Delete Email Threads With Certain People

In the same way, you can delete read or unread emails, you can use Gmail's search field to find all the emails sent to or received from a specific person and delete just those messages.
You can use two filters – to and from – to find messages sent to or received from a specific person.

Specific Email Search

You can search using someone's first name, last name, full name, or email address. You can search for to:da, to:dave, to: dave johnson or to:[email address].

  • In a web browser, open Gmail and log in to your account, if needed.
  • In the search bar at the top of the screen, type to:[name] of the person you want to find emails addressed to. Likewise, you can type from:[name] as well.
  • Click the Select all box at the top of the list of emails. This will select all emails on the current page — up to 50 emails. To mass delete all emails to or from that name and not just those on the first page, you can also click Select all conversations that match this search.
  • Click the Delete icon, shaped like a trash can, at the top of the email list.

Quick tip: If you want to ensure that emails you send are deleted from someone else's inbox after a specific time, you can use Gmail's built-in confidential mode to disable forwarding, control access, and set expiration dates on your outgoing mail.

How To Delete Emails Before A Certain Date

You can also delete all the emails in your inbox before or after a specific date. You can find these emails using the search field in much the same way as other kinds of searches, using the format before:[date] or after:[date]. You can format the date as D/M/YYYY or D/MYYYY, depending on your preference. 

  • In a web browser, open Gmail and log in to your account, if needed.
  • In the search bar at the top of the screen, type before:[date] or after:[date].
  • Click the Select All box at the top of the list of emails. This will select all emails on the current page — up to 50 emails. To mass delete all emails in this date range and not just those on the first page, you can also click Select all conversations that match this search.
  • Click the Delete icon, shaped like a trash can, at the top of the email list.

How To Delete Emails In Bulk With Keyboard Shortcuts

Just like most applications, Gmail has its keyboard shortcuts, and you can delete a large number of emails with just a couple of keypresses. Before you can use shortcuts, though, make sure Gmail's keyboard shortcuts are enabled. Click the Settings icon at the top of the page, and then on the General tab, scroll down to Keyboard shortcuts and click Keyboard shortcuts on.

Once enabled, here are the most essential shortcuts to try:

  • Bulk delete emails
  • Press * and a to select all of the emails on the current page
  • Press # to delete all of the selected items
  • Archive messages instead of deleting them. If you have sufficient storage space, you can archive messages rather than deleting them
  • Press * and a to select all the emails on the current page
  • Press e to archive them

This removes them from your inbox but doesn't delete them. Instead, you can find them in All Mail. For more details, refer to our complete guide on archiving.

Quick tip: You can also read through emails one by one and use the } shortcut to archive individual conversations to All Mail. This removes them from your inbox view without risking deleting important information.

17 Best Email Cleaner Apps To Use in 2024

Person Using Laptop and Mobile - How To Clean Gmail Inbox

1. Inbox Zapper

Inbox Zapper is a Gmail cleanup tool designed for efficiency. You can unsubscribe from emails and newsletters and mass delete emails with one click. Inbox Zapper scans your inbox for email lists and unwanted emails. None of your email data ever leaves your device, preserving complete privacy.

Inbox Zapper was designed with privacy in mind from day one. Other tools resell your data; we just help you clean your inbox. Join 15,687 people who have used Inbox Zapper to clean 28,384,924 emails. Inbox Zapper only supports Gmail, but we will also expand to other email services. Inbox Zapper is the easiest way to clean your Gmail inbox.

Try Inbox Zapper's Gmail cleanup tool for free today to clean up your Gmail inbox with one-click.

2. InboxPurge

InboxPurge is a browser extension that helps you clean your Gmail by letting you:

  • Mass unsubscribe from unwanted emails
  • Delete many emails at once
  • Manage your email subscriptions

It is very easy to use and can significantly help clean up your Gmail quickly. What makes InboxPurge the best email cleaner for Gmail is its privacy-focused approach. Your email data never leaves your device; all interactions with Gmail happen locally on your device.

3. Clean Email

Clean Email helps users achieve Inbox Zero by automatically organizing emails into easy-to-manage categories. It offers features such as grouping and archiving emails and powerful filtering and auto-clean options.

This tool supports multiple email providers and helps reduce email overload by:

  • Minimizing distractions 
  • Prioritizing important messages

4. Mailstrom

Mailstrom is designed to handle email overload by allowing users to:

  • Delete
  • Archive
  • Move large quantities of emails at once

It helps manage subscriptions and block unwanted senders, making it easier to reach Inbox Zero. Mailstrom supports multiple email accounts and providers, making it a versatile tool for email management.

5. Unroll.Me

Unroll.Me is a simple and free tool for managing email subscriptions. It provides a comprehensive list of all subscriptions, allowing users to easily unsubscribe from unwanted emails and combine the rest into a daily digest called the Rollup. This tool is ideal for those looking to declutter their inbox from promotional emails.

6. SaneBox

SaneBox uses artificial intelligence to prioritize and sort emails based on their importance. It creates custom folders like SaneLater, SaneBlackHole, and more to help users manage their inbox efficiently. SaneBox also offers features like email snoozing and reminders, making it a robust tool for controlling your inbox.

7. Cleanfox

Cleanfox focuses on removing and blocking newsletters and spam emails. It provides users with statistics on their email usage and lets them clean their inbox with just a few clicks. Cleanfox supports multiple platforms and is effective for users looking to reduce the amount of promotional content in their inboxes.

8. Leave Me Alone

Leave Me Alone offers a comprehensive solution for the email overload caused by newsletters. The cleaning process is done by viewing all subscription emails in a single list, and choosing which ones to unsubscribe from while the email cleaner handles the rest. Apart from cleaning, Leave Me Alone also organizes through the Rollups, and with this, the newsletters are delivered daily or weekly according to the set schedule.

It supports almost every email address based on IMAP and works on any platform with a browser.

9. Trimbox

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

Trimbox, certified by Google’s privacy team, is clear about privacy and ensures no data is gathered or shared. Its extension is available for Android and iOS but restricted to Gmail.

10. Triage

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.

11. Edison Mail

Edison Mail offers an AI-based assistant that categorizes all your emails in its email app. 

  • The email cleaner app has a widget that provides a carousel for suggested unsubscribes. 
  • It has an AI assistant that suggests unsubscriptions in the form of 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.

12. AgainstData.com

AgainstData.com is an unparalleled tool dedicated to privacy. It helps users:

  • Clean their inbox
  • Easily unsubscribe from unwanted emails
  • Request companies to delete their data

Features

  • Automatically filters promotional mailing lists from the main inbox
  • Provides seamless email unsubscribe with just one click
  • Option to bulk delete emails whenever you unsubscribe

13. GoodByEmail

Declutter your inbox without giving third-party access to your emails! Reclaim GBs of storage and unsubscribe from pesky emails—all while keeping your emails off our servers. Experience total privacy with GoodByEmail, even offline!

14. Hiver

Hiver is a Gmail and Outlook-based customer support tool. One of its standout features is Harvey, Hiver’s AI assistant, which makes cleaning up your customer support inbox simpler and more efficient. Harvey is particularly good at dealing with those little tasks that can pile up and clutter your inbox.

For example, after you’ve resolved a customer query and closed the conversation, it’s not uncommon for the customer to send a quick “thank you” email. While it’s a nice gesture, it can reopen the conversation unnecessarily, adding to the clutter and potentially skewing important metrics like your Average Resolution Time.

15. Spark Mail

Spark Mail makes prioritizing emails in your inbox easier by highlighting the most important contacts and messages. With features like Priority and Pin, you can ensure that the most critical emails are the ones you see first. The ‘Group by Sender’ function further streamlines your inbox, allowing you to see and manage emails from specific contacts quickly.

16. Astro

Astro is an all-in-one AI email cleaner and manager. 

  • It has a built-in chatbot called Astrobot that interacts with you to help manage your inbox. 
  • Astrobot can suggest which emails you might want to unsubscribe from, identify which contacts are most important to you, and even recommend what to save. 
  • The app is supported by Gmail and Office 365, so it’s compatible with the most commonly used email providers. 
  • Integrates with Slack, allowing you to manage your emails directly from the Slack app. This is particularly useful if you already use Slack for work and want to keep all your communications in one place.

17. Sortd

Sortd is software that naturally and intuitively combines email and task management. It overlays a column-based, board-like interface onto Gmail. Imagine turning your inbox into a flexible set of lists where you can drag and drop emails based on your projects, priorities, or the stages of task completion. It’s still Gmail, but now it’s organized in a way that helps you manage both emails and tasks in one place.

Step-by-Step Guide to Using an Email Cleaner

Person Typing - How To Clean Gmail Inbox

Install Inbox Zapper Email Cleaner Extension

To start your journey to a clean inbox, you need to install the Inbox Zapper email cleaner extension. Go to the Chrome web store and download the extension. 

Connect Your Gmail Account To Inbox Zapper

Once the extension is installed, navigate to the Gmail account you want to clean. From there, you will see the option to connect to Inbox Zapper. Click the button to link your email to the app. 

Use Inbox Zapper to clean your Gmail Inbox

Using the Inbox Zapper sidebar in Gmail, you’ll see a list of your email subscriptions sorted by the number of emails sent. To clean up your inbox, select the unwanted emails in the sidebar and click the "Unsubscribe" button. 

Inbox Zapper will automatically find and click the unsubscribe links in those emails, saving you much time and effort. You can also optionally delete all emails ever sent by those subscriptions.
Alternatively, you can select unwanted emails natively in Gmail and mass unsubscribe or bulk delete using Inbox Zapper. Here’s how:

  • In Gmail, search for keywords like "unsubscribe" or "promotions" to find emails you don’t want anymore.
  • Select all the unwanted emails and click the "Super Unsubscribe" button. Inbox Zapper will automatically use the unsubscribe links in those emails. 
  • If you click the "Super Delete" button, Inbox Zapper will delete all emails ever sent by the selected senders.

How to Choose the Best Email Cleaner for You

Person Using Laptop - How To Clean Gmail Inbox

Pinpoint Your Email Cleaning Goals

Start by considering what you need the most from an email cleaning tool. 

  • Are you overwhelmed by spam? 
  • Do you need help organizing your emails into categories? 
  • Are you looking for features like scheduling and snoozing emails?

Understanding your specific needs will help you narrow down your options.

Check Compatibility with Your Email Provider 

Make sure the tool you choose is compatible with your email provider. Some tools work seamlessly with popular providers like Gmail and Outlook, while others may have limited compatibility. Double-check whether or not the tool supports your email platform.

Consider the Email Cleaner's User Interface 

A user-friendly interface can greatly affect how effectively you use the tool. Look for a tool with an intuitive design that makes it easy to navigate and manage your emails. You want to spend less time figuring out the tool than using it to clean your inbox.

Dig Into The Features of Each Tool 

Different tools offer different features, so knowing which ones are most important to you is essential. Some key features to consider include:

  • Spam Filtering: Keeps unwanted emails out of your inbox.
  • Categorization: Automatically sorts emails into folders.
  • Unsubscribe: Easily unsubscribe from newsletters. 
  • Reminders: Set follow-up reminders for essential emails. 
  • Bulk Actions: Delete or archive multiple emails at once.

Choose a tool that offers the features that will make your email management easier and more efficient.

Compare Costs

When choosing an email cleaning tool, consider your budget. Evaluate the features and benefits to determine if the cost aligns with your needs and budget.

Read Reviews and Testimonials 

Check out reviews and testimonials from other users to get a sense of the tool's effectiveness and reliability. Real-world feedback can provide valuable insights into how well the tool works and any potential drawbacks.

Related Reading

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

Inbox Zapper is the Gmail cleanup tool that works. With one click, Inbox Zapper:

  • Mass unsubscribe from emails and newsletters and mass delete emails. 
  • Scans your inbox for unwanted emails and lists. 
  • None of your email data ever leaves your device, preserving complete privacy. 

From day one, Inbox Zapper was designed with privacy in mind. Other tools resell your data; we just help you clean your inbox. 

Join 15,687 people who have used Inbox Zapper to clean 28,384,924 emails. For now, Inbox Zero only supports Gmail, but we will also expand to other email services. Inbox Zapper is the easiest way to clean your Gmail inbox. Try Inbox Zapper's Gmail cleanup tool for free today to clean up your Gmail inbox with one click.

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