Automate Repetitive Tasks
There’s nothing more draining than performing the same task over and over each day or even multiple times per day. One of the handiest Gmail management tools for eliminating this tediousness is filters.
By setting up Gmail filters, you can automatically label, mark, or delete certain messages as they arrive. As examples, you can label work-related emails, mark messages from your boss as important, or delete emails in the Promotions category.
I mentioned above that I’d explain ways that the Clean Email app can enhance the Gmail inbox management tools. Where Gmail offers filters, Clean Email offers Auto Clean rules for automatically handling incoming and existing messages.
What I like best about Auto Clean is that you:
- Can base your filters on more conditions than Gmail.
- Have flexibility with the actions you take.
- Can set up rules on your mobile device (a feature not available in the Gmail app).
💡 As examples, I use Auto Clean rules to retain only the newest messages for service notifications like Google Drive (Keep Newest option), move newsletters I want to browse to a Read Later section, and send old unread promotions and messages from automated systems to the Trash.
Declutter Your Inbox Quickly
Filters and rules are ideal for automatically organizing emails, but they can’t take care of everything. Maybe you have messages that you want to see immediately as they arrive but remove as soon as you read them. Remember, emails like this can easily clutter your inbox.
Selecting Emails and Bulk Actions
You can select multiple emails at once in Gmail and then act on those messages in bulk. But I’m going to cut to the quick on this one—if you’re doing this task on mobile, use Clean Email instead of Gmail, here’s why.
Gmail provides a Select All button in the mobile app which appears after you long-press a message in your list. However, it doesn’t technically select all emails—initially, it selects only 50 emails and then continues to select those currently loaded. So, here’s the process:
- Display and mark the Select All button.
- Scroll down the screen to load another bunch of messages.
- Mark the Select All button again.
- Repeat the process of scrolling and selecting until you’ve selected the total number of emails you need.
Clean Email also provides a Select All option in its mobile app. But this button really does select all emails! You don’t have to scroll to load more messages.
💡 Once I use the Select All option, I can see the total number of emails selected regardless of how many actually display on my screen. After I select the messages, I Trash or Delete them all in one fell swoop.
Cleaning Suggestions
Another feature worth mentioning for a fast sweep of your Gmail inbox is Clean Email’s Cleaning Suggestions.
With this handy feature, I regularly visit the Suggestions section, scope out the recommendations, and then archive or trash hundreds of emails at once.
💡 This is also convenient if you’re not quite sure what to do with certain groups of emails.
Keep Your Inbox Organized
Trashing or deleting mass emails is only part of getting to an organized Gmail mailbox. What do you do with the messages that remain? This includes emails not handled by filters or rules and those you don’t want to delete either.
I suggest taking advantage of the Gmail label system! As a Gmail user, you probably know that labels are similar to folders providing you with a simple way to organize emails. For instance, I use labels for work, shopping, social media, and travel-related emails. I then label these as such which “moves” them out of my inbox yet makes them easy to find when I need them.
To take this Gmail feature to the next level, Clean Email provides Smart Folders. While these are actually folders, they work just like labels for filtering related messages. Best of all, the app creates the folders for you and filters the messages into them automatically!
Smart Folders are one of my favorite Clean Email features. I can simply choose a Smart Folder like Online Shopping, Travel, Social Notifications, or Seasonal Sales and see all related messages in one place.
💡 Guess what else? Using the bulk selections and actions described above, you can manage mass messages in a Smart Folder too! So, when the trip is over or the sale ends, simply delete all of those emails in a few clicks.
Manage Subscriptions and Mark Spam
One more set of Gmail productivity tools that is absolutely worth your attention are the unsubscribe and spam filtering features.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve noticed a huge increase in these types of messages over the past couple of years. It’s enough to manage and organize the messages I want, much less have to spend time on those I don’t!
Manage Subscriptions
Gmail provides a handy unsubscribe button at the top of a message it recognizes as a subscription. When you click that button, you can then either confirm or see a message that you must confirm on the mailing list’s website.
In most cases, this should stop future unwanted messages from that company. However, some dishonest senders may continue emailing you from the same domain, even after you unsubscribe and block the email address. Fortunately, Clean Email has a solution for that.
💡 Now, the Gmail unsubscribe button is convenient, but the Unsubscriber feature in Clean Email is superb (and another favorite). Why? You can unsubscribe from emails in bulk, not one at a time which can take forever.
Additionally, you can see all messages you unsubscribe from, in case you change your mind, and you can also pause subscriptions for a short time.
What’s more, when unsubscribing isn’t enough, Clean Email is still here to help. You can stop the entire domain from emailing you by setting an Auto Clean rule if the sender doesn’t honor the unsubscribe request and continues sending unwanted emails.
Mark Spam
In Gmail, you can mark a message as Spam and then have the option to send it to the Trash. This helps Gmail to recognize additional junk emails moving forward. But, you must continue the process as new junk arrives or set up a filter to auto delete spam in Gmail.
In Clean Email, you can mark Gmail spam too. However, you can also use the Screener feature which automatically isolates messages from unknown senders. And as you know, spam is normally from a sender unfamiliar to you.
💡 So, before these junk emails invade my inbox, I review them in Screener and then block them all in one spot.
It’s also possible to mark senders as Spam through the Screener tool, or perform other actions while the message is still not in your inbox.
Clean Email: Advanced Email Management Software for Gmail
I talked a lot about Clean Email here and how it can enhance the Gmail email management tools. To be sure you have the details you need, here are just a few things you should know.
Clean Email:
- Is not a Gmail replacement; it’s a supplementary tool for mailbox management that works with all IMAP email accounts.
- Provides all the same features in its web, desktop (for Mac), and mobile apps for Android and iOS for complete consistency and device syncing.
- Is committed to your privacy and security, ensuring your data remains safe with its app regardless of device.
One Final Tip
Wrapping up, one of my biggest tips for Gmail productivity with Clean Email is to connect multiple email accounts. This gives you a much simpler way to manage your mailboxes on any device.
I use Clean Email for both Gmail and Outlook, easily switch between the mailboxes, and use all of the features mentioned here to keep my inboxes under control. I hope you will too!
