How to Clean Up Email in 10 Easy Steps & 15 Tools to Use

Inbox Zapper

September 5, 2024

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An overflowing inbox can feel like a digital black hole, sucking away your time and focus. Every time you log into your email, you’re greeted by the daunting sight of thousands of messages, many of which you don’t even remember getting. Even if you diligently mark emails as read or archive them to get them out of sight, it does nothing to lessen the feeling of anxiety that comes with having so many emails. Not only can it be hard to find important information when needed, but studies show that the more emails you have, the less productivity and focus you’ll have. You're in the right place if you aim to learn how to clean up email in gmail to regain control of your inbox and improve your performance. This blog will show you how to get started and help you find the perfect email cleaner app to help clear out the backlog and stay on top of your email communication.

One app that can help you achieve your email cleanup goals is Inbox Zapper. This Gmail cleanup tool can help you quickly and easily delete unwanted emails in bulk, restoring your inbox to zero and improving your productivity.

Why Should You Clean up Your Email?

employees working on a laptop - How to Clean Up Email

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. You lose about 20% of each new task you start. In the long run, such as during a specific demanding project, this causes a lot of time wasted. As a result, you tend to take longer to finish essential tasks, as new information is constantly filling your inbox.

Better Communication

No one likes waiting too long for a reply. If your work is mainly email-driven, keeping track of incoming messages from coworkers and managers is even more critical. But it’s hard to do that unless you clean up Gmail. If your mailbox is always cluttered and hard to shift through, 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
Unhappy collaborators

Searchability

Looking through emails only gets more challenging 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 see in the future.

Digital Space Concerns

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.

Importance of a Clean Gmail Inbox

The Wall Street Journal reported that most employees spend about two weekly workdays on emails and meetings. That’s a lot of time, and with a clean inbox, employees can save some of it for more meaningful tasks.

You might be looking into the inbox cleaning up due to a lack of space, but there’s much more in store.

Enhanced Productivity

The more organized your inbox, the more you can get done. It becomes simpler to locate:

Important emails
Reduce distractions
Improve overall efficiency

Never Miss Important Messages

Keep junk out of your inbox to avoid missing an important email. This will help you avoid the consequences, such as:

Missing deadlines
Failing to take the right action

Simpler Navigation

Gmail labels, categories, stars, and trash folders simplify navigation and email-finding even months later. With an inbox zero, you can find things and prioritize them faster.

Reduced Stress and Fatigue

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

Can I Clean up Thousands of Emails?

Even if you have thousands of emails to sort through, cleaning your Gmail can be smooth. With the right tools and strategies, you can tackle emails like a pro.

Gmail has several built-in features to help you manage and delete mass emails, including filtering, archiving, and bulk deletion. The key is to approach the task methodically, knowing it’s possible to regain control of your inbox with time and effort.

How To Delete Mass Emails On Gmail On The Web

Let’s say that your inbox is so neglected and overflowing with useless messages that you’re ready to apply the Gmail bulk delete features to get rid of everything in one go. Here’s how to delete emails in Gmail Inbox:

Log in to your mail account.
Navigate to the Inbox folder.
You'll find a checkbox at the top of the list of emails. When you click on it, it will select all the messages on that page.
Click the ‘Select all [number] messages in Inbox’ option.
Now that all emails in your inbox are selected, click the Trash bin icon at the top of the email list.
All the messages that used to fill your inbox are now in the Trash folder.

If you don't need to recover deleted emails from Gmail, go to the Trash folder and click on the Empty Trash Now option. Alternatively, let Gmail do the work for you, as it will automatically empty the Trash folder after 30 days.

How To Mass Delete Specific Emails On Gmail

So, it's easy to mass delete Gmail emails regardless of their content, age, and other criteria. But what about when you want to bulk delete specific types of emails? In this section, we'll explore how to delete:

All emails in the ‘Promotions’ category
All unread messages
Emails older than a certain date
All or multiple emails from a single sender
Messages larger than a specific size

How To Mass Delete Emails On Gmail In Promotions

Log in to your mail account.
Navigate to the Promotions category.
At the top-left corner of the email list, click on the checkbox to select all the emails on the page.
Click the ‘Select all [number] conversations in Promotions’ option.
Once you have selected all the messages, simply click on the Trash bin icon to delete them.

How To Delete All Unread Messages

Log in to your mail account.
Type "is:unread" in the search bar and hit Enter.
Click the top checkbox.
Click the ‘Select all messages that match this search’ option.
Click the Trash bin icon to delete all unread Gmail emails that you no longer need.

How To Mass Delete Emails On Gmail By Age

Follow these steps to delete old emails in Gmail:

Log in to your inbox.
Type "before:YYYY/M/D" (replace YYYY/M/D with the desired date, such as 2022/2/22) in the search bar and hit Enter.
Click the top checkbox.
Click the ‘Select all messages that match this search’ option.
Tap on the Trash bin icon to delete emails you no longer need.

How To Delete All Or Multiple Emails From One Sender

Log in to your mail inbox.
If you want to delete emails from one sender, type their email address or the sender's name into the search bar and press Enter.
Click the top checkbox.
Click the ‘Select all conversations that match this search’ option to select all messages from this sender.
To delete the selected messages, simply click on the Trash bin icon.

How To Mass Delete Emails On Gmail By Size

Follow these steps to delete large emails in Gmail:

Open your inbox and go to the search bar at the top
In the search bar, type "larger:4M" (without quotes) to search for messages larger than 4MB. You can adjust the number according to your preference.
Gmail will display a list of messages that match the size criteria. Select the messages you want to clean. You can click on the checkbox beside each message to select it individually or click the top checkbox to select all.
Click on the Trash bin icon to send them to Trash.

As you can see, anyone can learn how to mass delete Gmail emails that fit certain criteria. Regardless of which messages you clean up, don’t forget to empty the Trash folder to free up precious storage space.

How To Delete Gmail Emails In Bulk On Android and iPhone

Unfortunately, the Gmail mobile app doesn't support deleting all emails at once, as the web version does. Although the mobile app doesn't allow selecting all messages in a folder at once, you can still choose individual messages one by one to delete multiple emails in the Gmail app.

Here’s how to mass delete emails on the Gmail app:

Open the mobile app on your Android or iOS device.
Navigate to your Inbox or any other folder where the messages you want to remove can be found.
Tap the thumbnail to the left of each message you want to remove.
Tap the Trash bin icon to remove the selected messages.

Swipe Deletion

Another handy feature for deleting mass emails in the Gmail mobile app is utilizing the 'Swipe' option for quick, one-by-one deletions. Here is how to delete Gmail emails in bulk on iPhone using Swipe:

Start by tapping on the three-lined settings icon located at the top-left corner.
Proceed to scroll down until you find Settings, then select it.
Search for the Inbox Customizations option and tap it.
Select Email swipe actions from the list.
Choose your preferred direction for deleting emails - 'Right swipe' or 'Left swipe'.
From the list that appears next, pick Bin.
Click Done and head back to your inbox. From now on, swiping in your selected direction will send my messages to Trash.

The process for the Android mobile app is similar to that on the iPhone. Navigate to Settings, select 'General settings', and then choose 'Mail swipe actions'. From there, you can customize the actions for a left or right swipe, including the option to delete emails.

Mass Unsubscribe

Inbox Zapper is the Gmail cleanup tool that works. With one click, It allows you to mass unsubscribe from emails and newsletters and mass delete emails. It 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. For now, Inbox Zero only supports Gmail, but we will expand to other email services soon. 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.

How to Clean Up Email in 10 Easy Steps

man working on a laptop - How to Clean Up Email

1. Start with the Big Stuff: Get Rid of Emails with Large Attachments

When cleaning up your Gmail inbox, delete emails with large attachments. They take up a disproportionate amount of space and are likely the biggest culprit in reducing your available storage in Gmail.

To find these emails, type `has: attachment larger:1MB` in the search bar at the top of Gmail, and hit Enter. This displays all emails with attachments larger than 1MB. If you find any attachments you want to keep, download and save them elsewhere before deleting the emails from your inbox.

2. Get Rid of Entire Categories of Emails

Gmail has several built-in categories to help users automatically sort incoming emails. These include:

Primary
Social
Promotions
Updates
Forums

To clean up your inbox, click on any of these categories to view their contents. You’ll likely find a lot of emails you no longer need. To delete them:

Click the checkbox at the top to select all emails
Click the link to select all conversations in this category
Click the Delete button to eliminate them all at once

3. Unsubscribe from Newsletters and Annoying Lists

We’ve all been there. You subscribe to an email list to get a coupon or download a free resource, and now you’re paying the price with daily emails from this list that you don’t want. The easiest way to stop the cycle is to unsubscribe.

To find these annoying lists, type “unsubscribe” in the search bar in Gmail. This will pull up all emails with an unsubscribe link to help you regain your life.

4. Block Unwanted Senders

If you have unwanted senders flooding your inbox, consider blocking them. Are you getting constant notifications from a project management tool? Instead of blocking them, you could log into that tool and adjust your settings so you no longer receive so many emails from them.

5. Delete by Sender

You can also 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 complete list of emails that meet these requirements. From there, you can delete all these emails at once.

6. Delete by Date

Another advanced search feature to help you declutter your inbox is date. After all, do you need emails you received 5 years ago? To find these emails, click the dropdown arrow on the Gmail search bar and look for the “Date within” option. 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.

By default, “Newest” will be selected to see your newest 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 by 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? You can 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 certain words and phrases in the Subject line or those with specific words or phrases in the body. Use quotation marks around complete particular phrases you’re searching for.

8. Create New Labels

In Outlook, users organize emails with the help of a system of folders and subfolders. But in Gmail, things work a little bit 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.” Here, you can name a label and choose to “nest” it under a different label.

Once created, you can apply this label to any individual message in your inbox and multiple labels to a single message. Then, you can call up a label anytime you want 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 several features that make it easier for email users to stay organized. 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.

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

10. Create New Filters

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 require perfect consistency. Instead, setting up automatic filters for incoming messages may be better.

After conducting an advanced search for emails that meet specific criteria, 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 suitable filters, you can consider your Gmail inbox entirely self-cleaning. Ensure you read our guide on setting up Gmail filters for more information.

15 Best Bulk Email Cleaner Tools for Better Inbox Management

1. Inbox Zapper: The Fastest Way to Clean Your Gmail Inbox

Inbox Zapper is the Gmail cleanup tool that works. With one click, Inbox Zapper allows you to mass unsubscribe from emails and newsletters and mass delete emails. Inbox Zapper scans your inbox for email lists and unwanted emails. 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, and 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 Zapper only supports Gmail, but we will expand to other email services soon.

Free Cleanup

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. Clean Email: The Smart Way to Organize Your Inbox

Clean Email is another effective tool for cleaning up your Gmail inbox. The Clean Email tools offer functionalities such as the Screener tool, which enhances spam messages filter and marks every message you have received from a new sender. Its Unsubscriber tool helps you unsubscribe from emails you no longer want.

Additionally, its smart folders let you organize your emails into different categories automatically. Lastly, you can activate the auto clean-up, and the tool will automatically provide cleaning suggestions.

3. Mailstrom: The Email Cleanup Tool for Bulk Actions

If you are looking for a tool to assist you with bulk actions, Mailstrom is the one to help. You can select many messages to perform your email clean-up tasks simultaneously, saving time and increasing efficiency.

It automatically bundles emails based on commonalities so you can take bulk action. As a result, you no longer have to manually apply filters or look for a specific category of emails.

4. Mailman: The Email Organizer That Puts You in Control

This tool provides a VIP List, which highlights essential emails with a particular keyword you specify. Additionally, it offers the scheduling of email messages and their notifications.

Set up a Do-not-disturb mode when you do not want to receive emails and even delivery slots for how many times a day you wish to receive notifications.

5. SaneBox: The AI Tool That Prioritizes Your Emails

SaneBox is an advanced email management tool that utilizes AI algorithms to analyze your email behavior and sorts incoming emails into different folders based on their importance.

By identifying and filtering out spam and irrelevant emails, SaneBox helps you maintain a clean inbox and streamline your email workflow.

6. Cleanfox: The Email Cleaner That Helps the Environment

Cleanfox is an AI-based email cleaner that assists you in decluttering your inbox by recognizing and unsubscribing from:

Newsletters
Promotional emails

This tool also provides insights into your email habits and helps you reduce your carbon footprint by eliminating unnecessary emails.

7. MailWasher: The Spam Filter That Learns

MailWasher is a sophisticated spam filter incorporating AI to identify and block spam, phishing emails, and other malicious messages.

With its advanced machine-learning algorithms, MailWasher continually improves its filtering capabilities to ensure your inbox remains clean and secure.

8. Unroll.me: The Best Tool to Clean Up Email Subscriptions

Unroll.me is the best tool to clean up your email subscribers. It’s free and straightforward to use. All you have to do is connect your email addresses and get an instant breakdown of all my subscriptions. You can then unsubscribe to any subscription that is no longer relevant.

9. Triage: A Fast Way to Organize Your Inbox

Triage is a great method to organize your inbox and make it easier to manage your messages. You can eliminate months or even years’ worth of messages in minutes. The only problem is that the app is limited to iOS devices, so it is not universally usable.

10. Hiver: The Customer Support Tool that Cleans Up Inboxes

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.

After you’ve resolved a customer query and closed the conversation, it’s common 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.

11. Spark Mail: An Email App That Helps You Prioritize

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.

12. Astro: Your AI Email Assistant

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 36, so it’s compatible with the most commonly used email providers.

13. Sortd: The Email and Task Management Tool

Sortd is software that combines email and task management in a natural and intuitive way. 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.

14. ClearContext: The Outlook Email Manager That Organizes Your Workday

ClearContext, an add-on for Microsoft Outlook, is an email management system that does more than organize your emails; it helps organize your workday. It looks at which emails you reply to most often and prioritizes the messages in your inbox based on this.

It also turns your emails into tasks so that you won’t overlook anything. You can quickly turn an email into a task or appointment with a single click.

15. Gmelius: The Gmail Collaboration Tool That Helps You Work as a Team

Your team doesn’t need yet another software system or tool but a better way to collaborate on projects. Gmelius integrates directly into Google Workspace and makes it easy to collaborate on projects, customer support, and sales all in one place.

15 Email Management Tips to Clean Up Your Inbox for Good

1. Stop Signing Up for More Emails

It’s called “opting in” clicking a button responding to an offer to receive “valuable news and updates.” When you click “yes” and give them your email address, you’ve “subscribed” to their automated email system. (Remember—it’s a computer, not a store owner, sending emails.)

Unsubscribe Smartly

The problem is that you need to learn how often that website or advertiser will send you updates. It might be monthly or daily. If you already have enough emails flowing in, don’t sign up for more!

Bonus tip: Stop giving out your email address just because someone asks.

One exception: The “WhatIsMyIPAddress.com” subscription to get “IP Insights.” It comes just once a week and averages 160 words, making you safer and more innovative online.

2. Unsubscribe from Current Email Sources

It’s called “opting out”—the steps to unsubscribe to an email list by letting them know you don’t want any more emails from them. Maybe you’re thinking, “I don’t have time for that!” But you might not know that Gmail and other email programs let you unsubscribe right from one of their emails.

If you have Gmail, Go to a message from one of your subscriptions. Click “Reply,” as if you’re going to send a message. Look for the prompt that says you can “unsubscribe” by clicking a link. Click the link and say “Goodbye” to those emails.

3. Ditch Email Subscriptions for an RSS Feed

The first email management tip for cleaning up your inbox? Get rid of any unnecessary emails. Everyone subscribes to emails, whether it is to follow our favorite blogs or to receive news updates. But inboxes can get quickly clogged up with subscriptions, and before you know it, this is what you have to deal with every morning: Using an RSS reader, you can unsubscribe from these email updates and remain in the loop.

I simply add the URL of each source I want to keep following, and it'll appear on a separate screen instead of my inbox. Feedly is one of many free RSS feeds you can use to keep your inbox mess-free.

4. Manage Emails As Soon As You See Them

Whether you check your inbox often or set aside blocks of time each week, you need to deal with emails strategically. In other words, “when you see them” could mean they come in throughout the day or within a designated time frame. We recommend using a strategy known as the "one-touch rule" to deal with your emails: Delete.

Don't be an email hoarder. If you don't need it, delete it.

Take action: Pull the band-aid off and quickly deal with the email before filing it. If someone is looking for a document or phone number, attach it in a reply and move on.
Delegate: Forward the email to the right person and tell them what action to take.
Defer: The worst-case scenario is to hold on to it for later action and deal with it the next time you manage emails.

5. Move Your Email Conversations to Chat

More companies are seeing the value of Chat software over endless email threads, lost conversations, and missing files. Data from a Smarp report found that employees spend 25% of their day checking emails.

With so much going on, it's also a challenge for companies to manage their internal communications with company announcements, updates, and other important information that tends to get lost in email.

6. Delete Your Email App to Minimize Distraction

A mobile email app is a good idea, but it also keeps you hyper-connected to (and distracted by) your inbox. Removing your email app from your smartphone or tablet will help to build the habit of only checking your email during your dedicated window. If deleting your app seems extreme, at the very least, turn off your notifications.

If you use Gmail, go to your settings tab, click “General,” and turn off your desktop notifications. This small change can have a considerable impact on your productivity. Just the sound of a notification can disrupt your performance. If you don’t look at your phone, deleting your app can keep you focused on your tasks.

7. Use Canned Responses for Similar Responses

If you look in your sent folder, several messages likely require a similar, simple response type. There are so many ways to follow up with a lead or respond to questions from teammates. That’s why the easiest way to reduce your time spent on similar email responses is to use canned responses.

Setting up canned responses depends on what software you use to handle email. If you use project management software like Teamwork.com, it’s simple. Inside the inbox folder, access canned responses from the settings tab. Create canned replies for emails you receive daily and then insert them into your responses with just a few clicks.

8. Create a Follow-Up Folder

Start thinking of your inbox like a mailroom: you can reply to mail immediately or file it away for later.

Creating a follow-up folder is a great way to manage emails into “urgent” and “I’ll deal with it later” camps.
You should file away an email that isn’t urgent (like an agenda for a meeting in two weeks) and deal with it closer to the meeting date when I’ve got some free time.

You might be asking, isn't this just kicking the can down the road? Not really. The whole idea of this email management tip is to keep your inbox from becoming a dumping ground. Delegating my emails to the right places keeps my inbox clean and tidy.

9. Become a Ruthless Deleter

If you open an email that doesn’t fit into the “reply immediately” or “follow-up later” camps, bite the bullet and delete it. There's a good chance your inbox fills up with many time-wasting emails, like subscriptions and automated notifications (e.g. @name just replied to your comment on your project).

Subscribing to these notifications is essential, but leaving them unread or undeleted is a one-way ticket to email overload.

Solution

Don’t make the mistake of holding onto something later “just in case.”
If it’s not essential, you don’t recognize the sender, or the subject doesn’t apply to you—delete it.

Pro-tip: If you're not ready to delete an email, archive it instead. I archive emails to make my inbox tidier, but I won't lose access to them. Searching for a sender, subject, or keyword will include archived emails, and if I need one, I can just move it back to my inbox.

10. Block Out Time for Your Email

Time-blocking is one of our favorite email management tips. Superproductive leaders like Elon Musk and Bill Gates use time blocking to focus and tick things off their to-do lists. Blocking time for your email has two advantages:

You can devote your time exclusively to your inbox.
You will be focused throughout the rest of your day by email creep.

Try blocking off 30 minutes in the morning to deal with any emails you’ve received overnight. Schedule another 30 minutes after lunch to answer more. Coping with email two to three times a day should be enough time to reply and read all the essential stuff without spending my entire day in my inbox. Make time to clean my inbox deep in one of these blocks each week. A Friday afternoon is a great time to tie up loose ends, take action in that follow-up folder, and remove the trash.

11. Auto-Reply and Tell People When You'll Get Back to Them

Set up an autoresponder to tell people exactly when to expect a reply from you. This email management trick works the same way as an autoresponder for vacations. It'll let them know I've received their email and give them a specific time and date when I’ll reply.

I can leave a phone number for urgent issues where people can reach me if they need a reply ASAP. Using autoresponders like this is a great way to set expectations and make them feel heard.

12. Turn on 'Priority Inbox' to Push Important Messages to the Top

Inboxes are getting smarter; some can detect essential emails based on subject lines and sender details. Gmail’s priority feature automatically splits your inbox into three sections:

Important
Starred
Everything else

It’s also super easy to set up:

Click Settings.
Select “Priority Inbox” from the “Inbox type” dropdown box.
Customize the sections to suit your needs. Inside each inbox
Pick how many emails I want displayed at a time (5, 10, 25, or 50).
Choose to hide a section when it's empty.
Just collapse and open up the sections depending on what I want to reply to and clean up!

13. Make the Most Out of Your Inbox’s Labels

Labels are like post-it notes for all my emails. Each label can have a name, color, and sub-categories to structure my inbox. If I am a Gmail user, these are called “nests.” For example, I can generate an “invoice” label and, inside, create sub-categories for sent, paid, and overdue invoices

Whenever I receive an email about an invoice, I immediately click the label button and file it under the correct folder. This keeps my inbox clean and makes it easy to locate emails when I need them.

14. Automatically Filter Every Email That's Sent to You

Filters can separate my essential emails from junk mail and subscriptions when they hit my inbox. If I enjoy catching up on industry newsletters but don’t have time to read them every time I check my emails, I can add a filter to store them in a folder for later.

In my settings, click “Filters and Blocked Addresses”
Select “Create a new filter"
Describe the industry newsletters so Gmail knows which email to filter into a folder.

If I have unsubscribed from all of my irrelevant subscriptions, I should be left with only the newsletters I want to read.

Pro tip: Add a filter for newsletters containing the word "unsubscribe" because that phrase will exist in the copy of any subscription that lands in my inbox. After that, click “Create Filter” and let Gmail know what label I want the newsletters stored under. Beyond filtering my favorite newsletters, it may also be worth considering a spam filter service that will allow me to filter out any unwanted spam or cold emails.

15. Save Time by Learning the Shortcuts

Another one of our favorite email management tips is using shortcuts. These quick key entries make it simple and fast to clean up your inbox. There are many shortcuts, so remembering them can take a while. However, they significantly reduce the time it takes from A to B.

Everything from creating a new email to archiving selected messages can be sped up with a shortcut. Ensure keyboard shortcuts are turned on by selecting settings under the “General” tab. Now they’re ready to use. Here are some of our favorite shortcuts (remember for PCs to use Ctrl and ⌘ on Macs):

C: Opens a new email window
D: Opens a new compose window in a separate tab
S: Stars an email
Shift + 8 + U: Select all unread emails
E: Archives all selected messages
R: Reply to an email /: Opens up the messages search bar
Command + K: Insert a link

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

Inbox Zapper is a tool that cleans up your Gmail inbox. With just one click, it scans your inbox and finds unwanted emails and email lists. Then, it allows you to mass delete or unsubscribe from these emails in bulk. Inbox Zapper doesn’t just help you clean your inbox fast but also does it with your privacy in mind.

None of your inbox data ever leaves your device. You don’t have to worry about third-party snooping on your emails. Other tools resell your data. We just help you clean your inbox.

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