For a lot of people, email is a source of low-level stress, hundreds (or thousands) of unread messages, half of them rubbish, and no idea where to start. The good news is that a tidy inbox is easier to achieve than you think, and once you’ve sorted it out, keeping it that way takes very little effort.

Here’s how to get your inbox under control.

Start with a mass delete

If you have thousands of old emails, don’t try to read them all. Most of them don’t matter any more.

In Gmail, you can select all emails in your inbox at once and delete them. Tap the small circle next to any email to start selecting, then tap Select all, then Delete. You can refine this by date, search for emails from before a certain year and delete all of those.

The same approach works in Outlook and iPhone Mail. It feels dramatic, but if something was important, you’ll know about it. Old emails don’t usually contain anything you need.

Unsubscribe from everything you don’t read

The single most effective thing you can do for a quieter inbox: unsubscribe from every mailing list, newsletter, and promotional email you don’t actually read.

Scroll to the bottom of any marketing email and look for a small “Unsubscribe” link. Click it. It usually takes a day or two to take effect, but the volume drops noticeably within a week.

In Gmail, many marketing emails show an “Unsubscribe” link right at the top next to the sender’s name, you don’t even need to open the email.

A good rule: if you skip an email every time it arrives without reading it, unsubscribe.

What to do with spam

Spam is email you didn’t ask for, often from companies you’ve never heard of. Don’t click any links inside these, just select the email and tap Report Spam (Gmail) or Mark as Junk (Outlook and iPhone Mail). This moves it to your Spam/Junk folder and helps your email provider learn to catch similar messages in future.

Check your Spam folder occasionally, legitimate emails sometimes land there by mistake. If you find a genuine email in spam, open it and tap Not Spam or Move to Inbox.

Use folders (or labels in Gmail) to organise

Once your inbox is calmer, you can start filing things. Create a folder for:

Family, emails from people you know
Shopping, receipts and order confirmations
Important docs, anything worth keeping long-term (insurance, appointments, etc.)

In Gmail these are called “Labels” rather than folders, but they work the same way. On iPhone, tap Edit in the mailbox list to create a new folder.

You don’t need to be obsessive about this. Even moving the most important emails into one folder and deleting the rest is a huge improvement.

The two-minute rule

For new emails: if it takes less than two minutes to deal with it, do it now and delete or file it. If it takes longer, leave it in your inbox as a reminder to come back to it later, then deal with it and move it.

Aim to keep your inbox to emails that still need action. Everything else: filed or deleted.

Turning off email notifications

Most people have email notifications turned on, a ping every time a new message arrives. This is rarely necessary and makes email feel urgent when it isn’t.

On iPhone: go to Settings → Notifications → Mail and turn off notifications, or set them to deliver silently (badge only, no sound). Check your email at set times instead of reacting to every ping.

Inbox feel overwhelming, or not sure how to set up your email? Get in touch with Hebden Tech Tutors, we’ll help you get organised.