Best Email Tools to Boost Your Productivity

The Best Email Cleanup Tools

Our favorite email cleanup tools have to be Clean Email, Mailbird, and Sanebox.

Clean Email is the best email cleaning app there is because it supports virtually every modern mail service, can be used from the web as well as desktop and mobile devices, and offers an assortment of effective inbox-cleaning tools that together address all sources of clutter.

Mailbird is the best free email client (with optional paid subscriptions available) whose features can satisfy even the most demanding power users. For example, you can let it sort messages into common categories, write replies with the help of AI, save time using keyboard shortcuts, and much more.

Finally, Sanebox splits your messages into different folders and allows you to decide later which is important in order to train the Sanebox filter (check out what the best alternative to Sanebox is and why). It's an effective and hands-off solution that helps you stay focused.

2. Mailbird

Next on our list of the best email management tools is Mailbird. This app has revolutionized the mail experience for Windows users with its blend of powerful functionality and elegant design. The advanced mail client offers a suite of features aimed at simplifying your email management and boosting productivity. Its redesign in the latest update, Mailbird 3.0, enhances the visual appeal and also optimizes user experience with improved navigation and soothing color palettes.

At the heart of Mailbird's functionality is its centralized mail management system, which allows users to handle messages and contacts from various mail accounts seamlessly in one application. You can even integrate popular apps like Instagram, Slack, and Dropbox directly with the client to turn your inbox into a versatile workspace.

Just like any modern mail client should, Mailbird can snooze messages, block senders, and quickly find any attachment. However, it also integrates with OpenAI's technology to provide AI-powered mail authoring, making it easy to smash through any writer's block.

While Mailbird works with all email services, it runs only on Windows, and its developers don't plan to bring it to Mac or Linux. This is undoubtedly its biggest downside, but it matters only if you use a different operating system than Windows. For Windows users, Mailbird is easily the best email app there is.

3. SaneBox

SaneBox is a venerable email cleaning tool that has been helping the users of Gmail, iCloud, Outlook and other mail services maintain Inbox Zero since 2010. The core of SaneBox revolves around its advanced AI, which diligently analyzes incoming messages to determine their importance, relegating less critical messages to the SaneLater folder.

Many email productivity features have been implemented by SaneBox developers over the years. One that you don't want to miss is called Deep Clean. As its name suggests, this feature is intended to scrub your mailbox of all unnecessary messages to free up as much storage space as possible.

Other SaneBox features that make its subscription plan worth paying for include Digest (provides a convenient overview of newly received messages), Do Not Disturb (gives you a much-needed break from incoming messages), or Reminders (notify you that it's time to follow up with a certain sender).

While SaneBox, just like many other best inbox cleaners, operates predominantly via a web interface, it does offer an iOS app for on-the-go configuration, though it lacks an Android counterpart.

The Best Email Unsubscribe Tools

We all know how spam and subscriptions can overshadow the important information when it comes to your email. By using an email unsubscribe tool, you can finally get to the messages you want to see. Tools like Clean Email, Leave Me Alone, and Unlistr are all good options.

Clean Email, ranked as the top choice, lets users see all of their subscriptions in one bucket, allowing them to easily click a button to unsubscribe. Leave Me Alone, another leading unsubscribe tool, features a Rollup option to condense preferred subscriptions into a weekly digest. Unlistr is a paid Outlook plugin that can be quickly deployed across an entire organization to stop subscriptions from stealing employees’ valuable time.

Unsubscribing has never been easier when you utilize these tools. Subscriptions can be easily overlooked and create an overwhelming experience with email overload. This way you’ll be able to keep track of which subscriptions you want and declutter by removing the ones you don’t.

2. Leave Me Alone

Leave Me Alone is another email unsubscribe app with an intuitive web-based user interface that's designed to simplify the process of unsubscribing from unwanted messages. To unsubscribe, you just need to create an account, let Leave Me Alone analyze your currently active subscriptions, and then pick those you no longer want to see.

You can also consolidate multiple subscriptions you do want to keep into a single weekly digest using the Rollup feature, or set up the Inbox Shield feature to protect yourself against even the most annoying and persistent senders. However, it's important to note that both the Rollup and Shield features are exclusive to paid subscribers and are not available in the free version of Leave Me Alone.

On the contrary to Clean Email, Leave Me Alone requires a more complex sign-in process, including the creation of app-specific passwords. This extra step can be more cumbersome and less user-friendly compared to Clean Email's straightforward login procedure.

3. Unlistr

Unlistr is a dedicated Outlook plugin designed to optimize the process of unsubscribing from unwanted email subscriptions. With its patented technology, it identifies subscription emails by scanning both the header and body of messages. Unlistr looks for key indicators that an email is part of a subscription service, such as specific formatting, language, and other unique characteristics typically found in such emails, and it then provides an option to unsubscribe.

The plugin can be easily deployed across an entire organization to help employees minimize spam.

Unlike Clean Email and Leave Me Alone, Unlistr focuses solely on unsubscribing from mass mailings and does not offer the wider range of inbox management features that the other two provide.

The Best Email Organization Tools

One of the best ways to combat disorganization and increase productivity is to get organized. Email tools like Clean Email, Sortd, and ActiveInbox make it easy.

Clean Email, the inbox organizer we previously recommended for its effectiveness in email cleanup and unsubscribing, enables you to take control by setting rules for sorting your emails. This email productivity tool uses an algorithm to weed out unwanted mail and group emails together for easy browsing. It is a great way for you to filter a wide variety of emails in one mailbox.

Sortd and ActiveInbox are perfect for those who use Gmail accounts because they are both designed to enhance the Gmail experience by adding layers of organization and task management. Sortd transforms Gmail into a visually organized workspace with customizable columns, while ActiveInbox integrates task management directly into the Gmail interface.

There are many email organization tools to choose from, and these should be at the top of your list. They’re easy to use, helping you to sort through your messages faster than any human could, and help prevent common email organization mistakes.

2. Sortd

Sortd is a Google Chrome inbox organizer extension that transforms Gmail into a dynamic workspace where you can organize your tasks and prioritize messages. With it, you can effortlessly drag and drop messages into customizable columns on the right side of your screen.

These columns can be tailored to various needs, such as to-dos, ongoing projects, or client communications, making it an excellent tool for visual planning and prioritizing. If this sounds similar to Kanban-style project management apps like Trello, that's because it is!

Just know that Sortd is a one-trick pony that focuses only on Gmail. If you're using a different mail service, then it won't help you at all. It also doesn't do automatic email sorting like Clean Email.

3. ActiveInbox

Just like Sortd, ActiveInbox is another Gmail extension that combines task management with email organization by reimagining Gmail inbox as a more efficient workspace where messages are grouped with tasks and projects they relate to, rather than simply sorting them by date.

The core feature of ActiveInbox is its ability to assign due dates to each email, sorting them based on when tasks need completion or responses are due. Beyond due date assignment, ActiveInbox allows for the creation of custom sorting folders and uses the Lists feature for categorizing emails into high-priority, low-priority, or other personalized categories.

The Best Email Marketing Tools

According to 51% of marketers, email marketing is still the most effective marketing channel, but it takes the best email marketing tools to take full advantage of it. Platforms like Mailchimp, Campaigner, and HubSpot Marketing Hub have emerged as top solutions, each offering unique features to cater to diverse marketing needs.

Mailchimp is a household name in mail marketing, renowned for its user-friendly interface and all-in-one marketing capabilities. Starting with a free plan that allows up to 1,000 monthly messages, Mailchimp is ideal for businesses of all sizes.

Campaigner, on the other hand, boasts impressively powerful workflow automation capabilities that can be used to save a ton of time by creating complex campaigns in a visual manner. However, the tool may present a learning curve for new users.

There's also HubSpot Marketing Hub, which integrates CRM, social media management, and marketing automation in a single package, offering a holistic approach to email marketing. But just like Campaigner, the platform can be complex and expensive, especially for those new to digital marketing. That's why Mailchimp is the overall winner.

1. Mailchimp

Mailchimp is a well-known leader in the email marketing space and is easily one of the best email marketing tools. You can start with its free plan, which allows up to 1,000 monthly messages to be sent. With this plan, you get access to a limited selection of pre-built templates, more than 300 integrations with third-party apps and services, the ability to turn visitors into customers with customizable forms and landing pages, and more.

But what really sets MailChip apart from its competition is its all-in-one nature that seamlessly integrates audience data, marketing channels, and insights. This holistic approach allows users to efficiently promote their ideas across all kinds of different channels, including email, social media, and so on.

2. Campaigner

Campaigner is a marketing tool that targets both beginners and pros with three core subscription plans. The plans start from $59 per month for the Starter plan, which covers up to 5,000 contacts and includes essential features like segmentation, A/B testing, and access to over 900 prebuilt mail templates. The more advanced plans expand on this with additional subscriber capacity, e-commerce integrations, and advanced workflow automation, among other things.

The platform's user-friendly interface simplifies the campaign creation process, and the same can be said about its rich selection of customizable templates and layouts, which go a long way in helping anyone design engaging and professional-looking email campaigns. Unfortunately, the same ease of use isn't found in the automation workflow builder tool, so you better be ready to overcome a fairly steep learning curve.

3. HubSpot Marketing Hub

HubSpot Marketing Hub integrates CRM, social media management, and marketing automation in a single package, providing everything an aspiring or established marketer might need to reach for the starts—or at last for mail users. The Starter plan begins at $18 per month, providing basic analytics and mail marketing capabilities. For more advanced features, the Professional and Enterprise plans offer extensive tools like A/B testing, marketing automation, and customer journey analytics, albeit with a higher price tag.

One of HubSpot Marketing Hub's most significant advantages is the fact that it's powered by your HubSpot CRM database. If you already have one, then the most difficult part of creating a marketing campaign is already done, and all your customer interactions and data are at your fingertips, so you can create a personalized campaign in no time. Well, almost in no time, because HubSpot Marketing Hub can be quite difficult to learn, and it might take a while for you to become comfortable with it.