10 Gmail Life Hacks Every User Should Know

I’ve been using my main Gmail account for about 20 years, and I’m incredibly proud of how well I maintain it. My inbox isn’t overflowing with unread emails, my storage space is never full, and I’ve set up hundreds of filters to send useless emails straight to the trash. I don’t use any third-party tools to combat this chaos, and I’m here to share all the life hacks I’ve set up to keep my Gmail inbox under control.

Manage your email subscriptions to keep your inbox organized.

A good place to start decluttering your inbox is by reviewing all your newsletter subscriptions. In the past, I’ve been guilty of subscribing to too many newsletters and cluttering my inbox. What started out as a great way to read interesting things eventually turned into another chore I just couldn’t handle. At some point, you need to get rid of unread newsletters. You can start by manually unsubscribing from newsletters you don’t intend to read. Alternatively, you can transfer these subscriptions to another email address so you have one read-only inbox.

You can also try using read-it-later apps to receive and read your newsletters. I currently use Readwise Reader , and it allows me to read much more than I used to when these emails landed in my inbox. If your problem is that you’re subscribed to too many promotional emails that are essentially spam, you might also consider using Gmail’s built-in tools for unsubscribing from promotional emails .

Use as many filters as possible.

Gmail has powerful filters that can automatically delete unwanted emails. Yes, you can select multiple emails and click “Report Spam” to get rid of them. This will move them to spam, but I sometimes noticed that duplicate emails from the same sender would still end up in my inbox even after doing this. So, I started using Gmail filters to send repeat spammers to trash. To do this, select multiple unwanted emails from different senders you no longer want to receive messages from, then click the three-dot button in the web version of Gmail. Then, select “Filter messages like these,” and Gmail will automatically populate the filter list with all those senders. Select “Search,” and in the next pop-up window, check “Delete” and “Also apply filter to matching conversations.” Finally, select “Create filter.”

This will automatically move all emails from these senders to the trash folder and prevent any more of their emails from reaching your inbox.

Search filters are your best friends.

When your inbox is full or close to it, try a few search filters to find the emails taking up the most space. The most useful one is the “Size” filter. For example, in the Gmail search bar, you can enter “Size:20m ” and the results will focus on emails larger than 20 MB. Replace this number with 15, 10, or any other number, and you’ll see emails larger than that. You can back up these emails if they contain anything useful, and if not, you can delete them all.

Use advanced search to find spam.

I’m rather embarrassed to admit that when I was younger, I sent way too many forwarded emails to my friends and family. I still have a cache of forwarded emails from that time in my inbox, many of which I sent to over 50 people at once. I may have been guilty of a fair amount of spam, but it’s never too late to atone for my sins. If you click the three-line icon to the right of the search bar in Gmail, you’ll see advanced search options. You can use these options to search for emails from specific time periods and get rid of old junk that’s no longer useful (once you’ve stopped wincing at it, of course). Alternatively, you can simply use a search filter to find these emails. Try something like after:2006/1/1 before:2007/1/2 to find all your emails sent in 2006.

Using advanced search tools is easier than filters because you don’t have to remember different search operators. Plus, it makes more search tools available, making it a great way to delete old emails from your inbox. If only I could delete them from other people’s inboxes, too!

Attack junk emails at source.

At some point, it becomes tedious to constantly add filters in Gmail to filter out unwanted emails. I highly recommend exploring the settings on various websites to stop spam at its source. Social networks like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn are among the most popular senders of unwanted emails. If you explore their sending settings, you can block quite a few emails before they even reach your inbox. I try to uncheck all emails from all the sites I subscribe to. After doing this, these sites may still find a way to send you new emails, but you can easily unsubscribe by clicking the “Unsubscribe” button (usually found next to unwanted emails in the “Social ” or “Ads” tabs), or simply use Gmail’s filters to block these emails.

Teach Gmail which of your emails are important.

In Gmail, you can sort unwanted emails from your Inbox. Next to each email in your Inbox, you’ll see a small right-facing arrow icon. If you see an important email, click this icon, and it will turn yellow. This will mark the email as important, and over time, Gmail will keep those emails in your Inbox and move the rest to other folders.

Delete emails from your Spam and Trash folders.

Gmail is pretty good at automatically blocking spam, which means a lot of unwanted emails will end up in the Spam folder. Similarly, if you followed the steps above, you’ll have a lot of emails in the Trash folder. This is helpful, but you won’t see any real change in your Gmail storage space until you delete all of these emails. To do this, manually navigate to these folders, select all the emails you want to get rid of, and delete them all. Be sure to double-check that you’re deleting important emails, as emails deleted from these folders cannot be recovered. Also, be sure to check these folders at least once a month, as Google automatically deletes any messages that have been in them for more than 30 days.

Free up space in Gmail quickly

Gmail offers a simple built-in way to identify what’s taking up the most space in your inbox. To get started , go to the Storage Cleanup page and click “Clean Up Space.” You’ll be presented with several options and easy steps to get rid of excess space in your Gmail. Simply follow the on-screen instructions to complete these steps.

Turn important emails into tasks.

My colleague David Nield’s tip about turning emails into tasks has been incredibly helpful. When you open an email, you can click the “Add to Tasks” button at the top, which adds it to Google Tasks and turns it into a task. This helps me keep track of emails that might otherwise get lost. This way, I can easily save the most important emails and delete the rest. Much of the work of decluttering Gmail involves actively managing emails, and this tip simply helps me quickly get rid of unnecessary emails on a daily basis.

Try using third-party services to manage your email.

I’m usually reluctant to recommend third-party services for managing email chaos. This is because using such services means giving software companies access to your inbox, which is a privacy and security nightmare. However, I previously used SaneBox to help a friend reduce his unread emails from 50,000 to about 10,000 per day, as well as set up ways to prevent his inbox from becoming overloaded again. The service has been verified by Google and Leviathan Security Group, which allows me to recommend it with reasonable confidence. Lifehacker’s sister site, PCMag, also gave Sanebox a glowing review .

You can try the service for free with a 14-day trial. During this time, you can use the deep email cleaning feature to quickly get rid of tons of unwanted emails.

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