5 Kinds of Emails to Purge From Your Inbox

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We all have that email account — it's swimming in loose, unmanageable messages we can't seem to delete. It's our primary account. How did it get this bad? By not deleting these five kinds of emails.

1. Old Work Emails

You stopped working there two years ago but still let the entire history of communication rot in your email account, because who knows — maybe you'll need a coworker's contact info, need to access a file, or need to reference something. Here's the question: Have you so far? If not, consider adding all those old coworkers' addresses to your email contacts list and delete those emails! Here's how to add contacts in Gmail.

2. Newsletters You've Read (or Never Read)

You signed up for a lot of newsletters that seemed informative at the time, everything from your favorite retail outlets, to blogs, to clubs or associations you're a part of, to your bank's and gym's regular notifications. Once you've scanned or read them, delete! If you haven't read the sender's newsletters in more than a month, unsubscribe using a tool like Unroll.me. All the better to see the more important messages waiting in your inbox every morning.

3. Social Media Notifications

You opted in for email notifications on Facebook and other networks a long time ago, back in the oughts, when we expected to receive email notifications about everything. Now you have a smartphone that pings you everytime something new happens. All you have to do is check the app or go to the site (as if you don't already do that every 30 seconds) to stay abreast. So why do you still spam yourself with email notifications? Only because you are too lazy to delete them. Here's how to get rid of Facebook emails.

4. Blind Solicitations

You scroll past emails from someone you don't know very well, because they're asking for something. Do you plan to reply to them in the next two days? If not, let it go. The recruiter who emailed you about a job you don't want, the sales person following up on your purchase, the not-even-an-acquaintance who asked you to donate to their Kickstarter — they all knew it was unlikely they would hear from you, anyway. Stop feeling bad about not replying to them and delete those emails!

5. Sentimental Emails

You keep those special emails from your significant other, your parents or grandparents, your closest friends in a special folder. It's meaningful to hold onto those messages, but you don't open that folder very often. Well, you can still do that by downloading those sentimental exchanges to your hard drive, Dropbox, or other cloud storage. Anything not pertinent to your everyday communication needs is email clutter. Save those precious emails somewhere more permanent, where they'll be kept safe.

How do you keep your inbox tidy and uncluttered? Drop us a line in comments!

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