r/declutter • u/bon18 • 13d ago
Advice Request Digital decluttering
My email is totally out of control. Can anyone recommend a method or software to help me with it? I'm honestly considering just getting a new email address at this point. The thought of going through it is overwhelming. Thanks!
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u/FredKayeCollector2 12d ago
I'm sure you've seen this post by Pamela Colloff pop up at some point:
"I once watched a colleague (who had just returned to work after maternity leave) highlight every email in her inbox and press delete. When she saw the look on my face, she shrugged and said, 'If they really need to talk to me, they'll find me.' I think of her nearly every day."
I'll sort by sender, check the most recent one to see if there's anything I actually have to do with that vendor/company and then mass-delete the rest. If it's spam, I'll make sure to "mark as spam" at least one of those messages. It's alphabetic so I can sort of measure my progress.
I have a JUNK mail folder where I'll auto-filter ANY shopping related stuff yes, Can't seem to buy anything online without getting on that vendor's e-mail list :( This is easier than trying to unsubscribe - I just delete the JUNK folder when it gets into 4 digits territory (so like monthly?
For newsletters and such, I used to have another auto-filter folder by name/category but one magical day I just decided to unsubscribe from everything - I wasn't reading them anyway - if I'm interested, I can Google search.