New Ways to Better Organize Your Gmail Emailing System

Whether you are a student or a working professional, emails are likely a part of your everyday life now. As lives are becoming even more fast-paced, people often tend to ignore how messy their Email Inbox is. A messy Inbox and productivity don’t go hand in hand. Not only can you miss out on important emails but the clutter can also put your mind under unnecessary stress. In this guide, we have gathered some tips for you to organize your Gmail inbox, clear out any clutter, and boost your digital productivity.

1. Create Color-Coded Labels

Labels are a replacement for folders in Gmail. Labeling emails can help you easily classify emails into groups and also search for them later, if needed. For example, you can label all work-related emails with “Work”. You can also customize the color of the labels according to their priority. Let’s say anything urgent can be labeled with red. The good thing is that you can add more than one label to a single email. For example, an email regarding a shopping receipt can be labeled as both “Bills” and “Shopping”.

Additionally, you can add nested labels as well. For example, you label all school-related emails with “School” and then add sub-labels according to the subject/course that the email is related to.

Creating a new label is pretty straightforward. Simply navigate towards the sidebar on the left and click on “Create new label”. 

2. Customize Your Inbox Type

Gmail allows its users to customize the way their inbox displays emails. If you go to your Gmail settings, you will see a bunch of options for the layout of your inbox section. Options include:

• Default: Emails are displayed in reverse chronological order.
• Important first: Google’s machine learning algorithms decide which emails are more important and then display those at the top.
• Unread first: The chronological order is ignored and all the unread emails are displayed at the top.
• Starred first: The starred/prioritized emails are shown at the top regardless of when they were received. 
• Priority Inbox: Users can set up a customized priority inbox where they select and decide which type of emails will be shown.
• Multiple Inboxes: Users can set up a customized view with multiple inboxes. Up to 5 sections can be added by assigning a name and a customized search query.

It is recommended that you switch to the Important First type. Google’s machine learning algorithms are mostly accurate in classifying the most important emails. This will ensure that you never miss out on anything important and that your head remains clear of the clutter in your inbox. 

3. Archive Unnecessary Emails

By archiving emails, you can simply move them away from your main inbox into a separate “archive” section. These emails aren’t deleted and can still be easily accessed with a simple click or search. Emails that you no longer require but also don’t want to delete, can be moved to the archive to ensure that your inbox remains organized. This will help you navigate across your inbox freely and focus on the more important things.

Gmail also has a “Send and Archive” option, which when activated, sends an email directly to the archive after you have replied to it. To start using this option, you can head to Gmail’s Settings and then General. You should select the Show “Send & Archive” button in reply. Once this is done, every time you are about to send an email, you will see an additional blue Send button, which moves the email directly to the archive after being sent. 

4. Temporarily Snooze Emails
If there are any emails in your inbox that you will require after a few days but are simply a sore to the eyes for now, you can snooze them temporarily. Snoozing an email just means that you’re making it disappear from your inbox till a preset date/time. For example, if you have a bunch of emails with Bills that you’re not going to pay before the end of the next month, you can snooze them until then. This would ensure that your inbox is clutter-free and you don’t see unnecessary items every time you access your inbox. 
To snooze an email, select it and then click on the Snooze button. Then, you’ll see three templates. You can also pick a date and time of your own choice.

5. Add Emails As Tasks
If you have a hectic schedule, you might end up forgetting your work meetings, doctor appointments, or other important tasks. On top of a busy routine, if you have a messy inbox, such mishaps will likely happen. In such cases, Google Tasks can help you out. You can select any email and click on “Add to tasks” to add the email into Google Tasks manager. While adding an email as a task, you can also set a date and time. Once this is done, you can get a reminder before that task is due. This will ensure that you get timely reminders and that you don’t miss out on anything significant.

6. Enable Email Suggestions (Nudges)

There is a unique intelligent feature in Gmail called Nudges. By enabling nudges, you let Gmail give you a heads up regarding emails you still have not replied to or your emails that haven’t been replied to yet and might require a follow-up. Sadly, there’s no way to set up nudges on individual emails yet. For now, you can only do it as a collective setting. To enable nudges, go to your Gmail’s Settings and then General. Over there, check both these boxes and you’re done.

7. Unsubscribe!!

One of the first things you should do to clean your inbox is unsubscribing from all mailing lists that do nothing but send unnecessary newsletters/promotional content to your inbox. While this would not help in reducing the emails you already have, this will help to keep things in check for the future. Trust us, this will make your inbox look a lot more organized.

We guarantee you if you follow our suggestions and clean your Gmail inbox regularly, you will never have to worry about having a disorganized email system.