Definition
💡 Inbox decluttering is the process of making a messy inbox more organized.
The verb "declutter" means "to remove things you don't need," but in the context of email management, it's not just about removal by deleting. Sometimes, it also means moving messages to appropriate folders, archiving important emails for future reference or unsubscribing from unwanted newsletters.
Why It’s Important to Clear Up Your Inbox
By far the most common reason why people practice inbox decluttering is the need to improve productivity. With many people receiving hundreds of messages every single day, it doesn't take much time at all for an inbox to become unmanageable. In extreme cases, this unmanaged onslaught of messages can even lead to email anxiety, a very unpleasant condition that often requires therapy to overcome.
Of course, inbox decluttering is also often practiced to gain more free mail storage space, although this reason has become slightly less common in the last decade because even free mail service providers now give their users several gigabytes of storage.
Example
Here are some examples of my personal recent inbox decluttering efforts:
- Hundreds of unread (no-priority) messages accumulated in my inbox over several months, so I spent some time going through them, marking each as read and immediately archiving or deleting those that were no longer relevant. For instance, I found numerous expired promotional offers and outdated newsletters that I could delete without opening.
- I realized I was receiving daily emails from an online retailer I hadn't purchased from in years. Instead of just deleting these, I took the time to open them and unsubscribe from those I no longer wanted. While this took a few extra minutes, it will prevent hundreds of unwanted emails from arriving in the future.
- During my decluttering, I came across emails that required more time to address than I could give at the moment. Instead of leaving these in my inbox, I created a new folder called "Action Required". I moved emails like an invitation to a conference (which needed me to check my calendar before responding) and a request for feedback on a project (which required some thought and writing time) into this folder.
As you can see, inbox decluttering can have many different forms. To achieve the best results, you should combine various decluttering approaches so that you can effectively address all major sources of clutter.
The Best Tool to Declutter Your Inbox
Inbox decluttering can be a time-consuming process unless you make your life easier by using a specialized tool to help you with it.
Clean Email is an excellent choice because it comes with a whole host of features that simplify the decluttering process, including:
- Cleaning Suggestions provide personalized tips for cleaning up your inbox to help you kick-start your decluttering process.
- Auto Clean rules can be set up to automatically archive, delete, or move messages.
- Bulk Actions allow you to declutter all messages from the same senders in one go.
- Smart Folders intelligently organize messages that have something in common.
- The Unsubscriber tool lets you stop even shady marketers who don't include (working) unsubscribe links in their messages.
Best of all, you can use Clean Email regardless of where you are or the device you use thanks to its web interface and mobile apps.
