Too many emails? A practical way to get through them

If you get too many emails, reading faster will not fix it. What helps is getting less email, keeping most of it out of your inbox, and checking the rest on your own schedule. Here is a plan you can do in an afternoon, with the exact buttons to press in Gmail, Outlook and Apple Mail.

Why email overload happens

Most of the pile is not from people. It builds up from a few sources:

• Newsletters and promotions. Every shop, app and website you ever gave your address to.
• Notifications. Social networks, work tools, calendar updates, shipping alerts.
• Receipts and confirmations. Useful to keep, but you rarely need to read them.
• Cc culture. At work, being copied “just so you know” and long reply-all threads.

Each type needs a different fix. Lists you don't read should go. Notifications and receipts should be filed automatically. Only email from real people, and the few newsletters you love, should reach you.

Step 1: Unsubscribe fast

This is the step that pays off most. Spend 15 minutes on it and start with the senders who email you most often.

Gmail: Manage subscriptions

• On a computer, click More in the left menu, then Manage subscriptions. In the Gmail app, tap the Menu button at the top left, then Manage subscriptions.
• Senders are listed with how many emails they sent you recently. Click Unsubscribe next to any you don't want.
• Inside a single email, you can also click Unsubscribe next to the sender's name.

It can take a few days for a sender to stop. Until then, Gmail sends their new emails to Spam. Manage subscriptions isn't available in every country yet, so you may not see it.

Outlook

• Open a newsletter and select Unsubscribe at the top of the reading pane.
• With a personal Outlook.com account, you can also see all your lists in one place: Settings, then Mail, then Subscriptions.

Apple Mail

• Open an email from a mailing list. If Mail recognizes it, a banner at the top says the message is from a mailing list.
• Tap or click Unsubscribe in the banner and confirm. This works on iPhone, iPad and Mac, for any account added to Mail, including Gmail.

Step 2: Filter the rest out of your inbox

Some email you want, just not in your inbox. A filter, which Outlook and Apple call a rule, moves it to a folder the moment it arrives. Your inbox then holds only email from people.

Gmail filters

• Select an email from a sender, click More, then Filter messages like these. Or click Show search options in the search bar and enter your own criteria.
• Click Create filter, then choose Skip the Inbox (Archive it) and Apply the label, for example “Newsletters”.
• Tip: a filter for emails that contain the word unsubscribe catches most newsletters and promotions at once.

Gmail's inbox tabs also help. With the Default inbox type, Gmail sorts mail into Primary, Promotions, Social, Updates and Forums. Turn them on under Settings, Inbox type, Default, Customize. New-mail notifications then only cover Primary.

Outlook rules and Sweep

• Rules: right-click an email, choose Rules, then Create rule, and pick a folder. All future mail from that sender goes there. Manage your rules under Settings, Mail, Rules. The new Outlook for Windows can't run rules on Gmail, Yahoo or iCloud accounts you've added, so set those up in that provider instead.
• Sweep: select an email and choose Sweep. You can move or delete everything from that sender, keep only the latest one, or clear out their emails older than 10 days.

Apple Mail and iCloud

• iPhone categories: Mail can sort email into Primary, Transactions, Updates and Promotions, though not in every country. To move a sender, open one of their emails, tap the More button and choose Categorize Sender.
• iCloud Mail rules run on Apple's servers, so they work on every device. On iPhone: Settings, your name, iCloud, Mail, iCloud Mail Rules, Add Rule. Or on the web at icloud.com/mail, under Settings, Rules.
• Mail on Mac: choose Mail, Settings, Rules, then Add Rule. These rules run on your Mac.

Step 3: Check email in batches

Every notification pulls you out of what you were doing. Checking email a few times a day, on purpose, is calmer and usually faster than reacting all day.

• Pick your times. For example, mid-morning, after lunch and before you finish. Close your email app in between.
• Turn off most notifications. On iPhone, go to Settings, Apps, Mail, Notifications, Customize Notifications, and choose per account.
• Allow only the people who matter. In Apple Mail, mark key people as VIPs, then tap the info button next to VIP in your mailboxes and set VIP Alerts. In the Gmail app, go to Settings, your account, Email notifications, and choose High priority only.

Step 4: Triage with one simple rule

When you sit down to check email, touch each message once and pick one of four moves:

• Delete it if you will never need it.
• Do it now if it takes two minutes or less. Reply, pay, confirm, done.
• Schedule it if it takes longer. Put it on your calendar or to-do list, or snooze it until the day you'll deal with it.
• Archive it if it's for reference: receipts, bookings, finished conversations.

Archive or delete? Archiving takes an email out of your inbox but keeps it. In Gmail it stays under All Mail and in search. Deleting sends it to Trash, and in Gmail it is gone for good after 30 days. When unsure, archive.

Search, don't sort. You don't need a folder for everything. Search is fast enough to find an old email by sender or a word you remember. In Gmail, from:, subject: and has:attachment narrow it down quickly. Keep one archive and a few folders your filters use.

Step 5: Listen to the long ones

After steps 1 to 4, what is left is often the email you actually want to read: a good newsletter, a long update from a colleague, a school or club bulletin. These don't need an answer. They need 10 quiet minutes you rarely have at a desk.

So move them out of the way and listen instead. Give them their own “read later” label or folder with the filters from step 2. Or have your phone read emails aloud: Speak Screen on iPhone and Select to Speak on Android both work in any mail app. For more ideas on getting through subscriptions, see how to listen to newsletters.

Declare email bankruptcy

If you have thousands of unread emails, you won't get through them, and trying keeps you from what's new. Email bankruptcy means you archive everything older than a cut-off and start fresh. Anything important will usually come back as a follow-up.

In Gmail

• On a computer, type in:inbox older_than:30d in the search bar. Change 30d to suit you: d is days, m months, y years.
• Check the select box at the top left of the list. Gmail selects the first page only.
• Click Select all conversations that match this search in the notice above your emails.
• Click Archive. Nothing is deleted. It all stays searchable in All Mail.

In other apps, search or sort your inbox by date, select the older messages, and move them to your archive. If you want, send a short note to the few people you owe a reply, saying you cleared your inbox and asking them to resend anything urgent.

At work: send less, get less

Every email you send tends to bring replies. A few habits cut the traffic both ways:

• Cc fewer people. Copy only those who need to act, and ask your team to do the same.
• Write subject lines that say what you need, like “Approve by Friday: Q4 budget”.
• One topic per email, so it can be answered and archived at once.
• Say when no reply is needed. “No reply needed” saves a round of “Thanks!” emails.
• Move back-and-forth to a quick call or chat after two or three replies.
• Leave threads that aren't yours. Use Mute in Gmail or Ignore in Outlook on the web to stop getting a noisy reply-all thread.

Turn your reading pile into listening

Spokeninbox is an app for iPhone, Android, Mac, Windows and the web that reads your email aloud. It fits step 5: keep your inbox for replies and put the long reads in your ears.

• You get a private address, like you@in.spokeninbox.com.
• Forward what you want to hear. Use a filter to send just your newsletters, forward one long email by hand, or forward everything. Spokeninbox never logs in to your mailbox. It only sees what you forward.
• Press Play. Each email is read in a natural voice, with buttons, ads, sponsor blocks, legal footers and raw links removed.
• Listen on a walk or a commute. It keeps playing with your phone locked and remembers exactly where you stopped in each email.

Questions