3-Phase Hotmail Account Cleanup Strategy
At Clean Email, we recommend our proven 3-phase Hotmail account cleanup strategy to effectively tidy up even a huge Hotmail inbox with 10,000+ messages and keep it organized forever. This strategy separates the process into three distinct phases:
- Quick Clean: In the first phase, we target the lowest-hanging fruit to see immediate results with the least amount of effort. This involves mass deleting emails by thousands in seconds.
- Deep Clean: If the Quick Clean is not enough (and it most likely won't be), then proceed with a Deep Clean. This involves a more thorough review of your emails, sorting them into categories, and deleting or archiving them accordingly.
- Automation: To avoid ever again having to repeat the 3-phase process, we finish by creating rules that will organize your messages for you when they arrive in the future.
To implement our 3-phase Hotmail account cleanup strategy, we'll be using a combination of Hotmail's native features and a third-party inbox organizer tool, such as the Clean Email app. The amount of time it will take to complete each phase will depend on the size of your inbox and the level of organization you're aiming for. However, here's a rough estimate of how much time you can expect to spend on each phase:
Quick Clean
Deep Clean
Automation
Phase 1: Quickly Clean Up Your Hotmail Email
Are you ready to get started? Great! Then let's jump into the first phase of the cleanup process.
Step 1: Empty Your Deleted Items, Drafts, and Junk Email Folders
These folders often contain hundreds or even thousands of emails that are just wasting valuable space in your Hotmail account. Here's how to mass delete them:
- Open the folder you want to empty (Deleted Items, Drafts, or Junk Email).
- Click the Empty folder button in the top toolbar, or right-click the folder and choose the same action from the menu.
- Confirm your decision to mass delete emails in the folder.
Repeat this process for each of the three folders. Depending on how many messages you have, this step alone can significantly reduce your inbox clutter and free up storage space. But, of course, we're just getting started.
Step 2: Use Clean Email to Bulk-Delete Low-Value Messages
Finally, let's use Clean Email's Smart Folders feature to quickly identify and mass-delete low-value messages like social notifications, promotional emails, and online shopping confirmations.
- Go to: https://app.clean.email, and log in.
- Connect your Hotmail inbox.
- Navigate to the Smart Folders section in the left sidebar.
- Browse through the Smart Folders (Social notifications, Seasonal Sales, Messages to yourself, etc.) and select one that contains low-value emails you want to clean out.
- Click Select and then Select All.
- Click the Trash, Delete, or Archive button in the bottom toolbar.
- Repeat this process for other Smart Folders containing emails you no longer need.
Using Clean Email in this way lets you very quickly delete hundreds or even thousands of unimportant messages with minimal effort, effectively solving any issues with Hotmail storage being full.
Step 3: Filter and Delete Old Emails
Next, let's target old emails that you're unlikely to need again. Hotmail's built-in search and filter functions make it easy to find and delete these emails en masse.
- Click in the search bar at the top of your inbox and click the Filters button.
- Specify the desired range and set Read status to "Read."
- Click Search.
- Click the Delete all button in the top toolbar.
- Confirm your decision to delete all messages that appear in the search results.
If you're hesitant to permanently delete these old emails, you can choose to archive them instead. Archiving removes the emails from your inbox but keeps them accessible in case you need them later. To do that, click the top checkbox to select your messages and then click the Archive button.
Phase 2: Deep Clear Hotmail Storage
If your Hotmail account is still feeling stuffed after the Quick Clean, it's time to move on to phase 2: the Deep Clean. This is where we really dig in and thoroughly organize your inbox, so that each and every email is either deleted, archived, or moved into an appropriate folder.
Step 1: Create Folders for Organization
Start by creating a set of folders in Hotmail that reflect how you want to organize your emails. For example, you might create folders for "Work," "Personal," "Shopping," "Travel," etc.
To create a new folder:
- Click the Create new folder link at the bottom of the left sidebar.
- Name the new folder.
- Click Save.
You can create as many folders as you need based on your preferences and mail categories.
Step 2: Review Email Bundles with Clean Email
Now it's time to go through your inbox, email by email, and decide whether to delete it, archive it, or move it into one of your newly created folders. In Hotmail, you can do this by opening each email, then using the Delete, Archive, or Move to buttons in the toolbar.
However, sorting emails one-by-one can be incredibly time-consuming, especially if you have a huge Hotmail inbox with thousands of messages. This is where Clean Email really shines.
Clean Email makes sorting your inbox much faster and easier by automatically grouping your emails by sender. Instead of handling emails individually, you can organize entire groups of messages from the same sender all at once.
Here's how:
- Go to https://app.clean.email and log in.
- Go to the Inbox or All Mail folder.
- You'll see your emails grouped by sender and sorted by date.
- Select a sender or multiple senders whose emails you want to organize.
- With the sender(s) selected, choose an action from the toolbar at the bottom of the screen such as Trash, Archive, or Move.
This optimized process can save you a significant amount of time and effort, making it the best way to clean up your Hotmail inbox to the very last message.
Step 3: Get Rid of Unwanted Subscriptions
If you're like most people, you're probably subscribed to a bunch of newsletters and mailing lists that you never read. These unwanted emails can quickly clutter up your inbox, so it's important to unsubscribe from them.
Typically, you would open an email from the sender you want to unsubscribe from, scroll to the bottom of the email, and look for an "Unsubscribe" link. While this method works for most legitimate senders, some emails may not have an unsubscribe link. What's more, even legitimate senders often make their unsubscribe links difficult to notice, which is why we recommend you use Clean Email's Unsubscriber feature instead:
- Log in to Clean Email with your Hotmail credentials and navigate to the Unsubscriber section in the left sidebar.
- You'll see a list of all the subscriptions Clean Email has detected in your Hotmail inbox.
- If you want to cancel just one subscription that is bombarding you with dozens of emails, click the Unsubscribe button next to that subscription.
- If you have many subscriptions you would like to opt out of, select multiple mailing lists: tap Select, then choose the others. Click Unsubscribe in the blue action bar below.
- If you want to cancel all subscriptions, tap Select above the subscriptions list, then tap Select All. Click Unsubscribe and confirm your decision.
- Alternatively, click the arrow next to the Unsubscribe button and select Pause to temporarily stop receiving emails from that sender.
This method allows you to effectively block emails from marketers with just a few clicks, including those that don't have an unsubscribe link. It works on all devices, allowing you to manage your subscriptions anytime, anywhere.
Phase 3: Automate Your Hotmail Management
The third and final phase of our Hotmail account cleanup strategy is all about automation. The goal here is to set up email filters that will automatically sort and organize your incoming emails, so you never have to go through a massive cleanup again.
Filters are essentially rules that you define for how Hotmail should handle incoming messages. For example, you could create a filter that automatically moves all emails from your boss into a "Work" folder. To create a filter in Hotmail:
- Click the gear icon in the top-right corner.
- Go to Mail and then Rules.
- Click Add new rule.
- Define the conditions for your rule.
- Choose an action.
- Click Save.
Outlook.com also has a feature called "Sweep" that allows you to quickly create rules for a specific sender. Just select a message and then click the Sweep button in the top toolbar. You can then choose, for example, to move all future messages from the same sender from the inbox folder.
While Outlook.com's built-in Rules feature is useful, it can be cumbersome to set up and manage. It has limitations, such as only allowing rule creation for multiple senders from Settings, and requiring manual selection of all senders. Additionally, the Sweep Rules feature is restricted to just four actions.
In contrast, Clean Email’s Auto Clean feature offers greater flexibility and more customization options. You can select senders in bulk and create customized rules tailored to your needs and preferences.
Most importantly, Auto Clean works seamlessly across all your devices, including your iPhone or Android. This means you can manage your Hotmail account and keep it clean on the go, without ever having to sit down at a computer.
To set up an Auto Clean rule:
- Log in to the Clean Email app on your mobile device.
- Select the Auto Clean tool.
- Tap the Plus icon at the top or the Create Rule button below.
- Give the rule a name to easily find it.
- Define the conditions for your rule and choose an action.
- Click Create Rule.
Once your Auto Clean rules are set up, Clean Email will automatically apply them to all incoming emails. You can manage your rules from the Auto Clean tool section.
Clean Email: More Than a Hotmail Cleanup Tool
As we've seen throughout this guide, Clean Email is an incredibly useful tool for both quick and deep Hotmail cleanup. But it's actually a comprehensive email management solution that can help you take control of your inbox in ways that Hotmail's native features simply can't.
For example, the app’s Privacy Monitor feature can help protect your online privacy by regularly checking your email address against known data breaches and security incidents. If your email is found in a breach, Privacy Monitor will alert you so you can take action to secure your account.
Clean Email also offers a unique security feature called Screener. When enabled, Screener will hold messages from new senders outside of your inbox until you review them in the Screener tab.
All these and other features work with all major email providers, including Gmail, Yahoo, iCloud, and more. So, if you have multiple email accounts, you can manage them all in one app regardless of whether you're on your desktop computer or mobile device.
Conclusion
Cleaning up your Hotmail inbox may seem like a time-consuming task, especially if you have thousands of emails accumulated over the years. However, with our three-phase process—Quick Clean, Deep Clean, and Automation—you have all the tools you need to achieve and maintain an organized Hotmail inbox.
How to Clean Hotmail Inbox - FAQs
How to clean your Hotmail from spam?
We recommend you diligently unsubscribe from all unwanted subscriptions and block senders you don't want to communicate with. Clean Email's Unsubscriber and Screener features can help you do this quickly and easily.
How can I clean out my Hotmail inbox quickly?
To tidy your Hotmail inbox quickly, you can use the Quick Clean method outlined in this guide. This involves mass deleting old or low-value emails, and using a tool like Clean Email to effectively unsubscribe from unwanted newsletters and promotions.
How do I clean up Hotmail inbox on my iPhone?
Unfortunately, the Outlook app for iPhone is somewhat limited in terms of cleanup features. While you can delete individual emails and empty your Deleted Items folder, the app doesn't offer the same bulk cleaning and organization features as the web version of Hotmail (Outlook.com). However, you can use Clean Email's iPhone app to access all of its powerful cleanup and automation features on the go.
