E-mails, whether wanted or not, can come at any time.
Having your inbox clogged with unsolicited ecommerce sales pitches, special offers, political fundraisers, dodgy newsletters, and worse is just one way people are making their online lives a living hell.
Whether it’s writer’s block from a dreaded cover letter or that one email you sent and regretted, there’s no reason to let the endless stream of email every day rule your life instead to work for yourself.
Here are some of the best tools, accessible right from your Gmail inbox:
Create filters to remove emails you don’t want cluttering up your inbox or wasting time
Skip the inbox
We all get emails that we don’t want to read right away…or maybe never. If it’s something you can’t unsubscribe from—like a relative’s weekly political rant—try this instead.
- In the search box at the top, click the three-line icon.
- Enter your search criteria, e.g. B. a sender, a subject line or even the inclusion of certain words. (If you want to verify that your search is working as expected, click Search to see what appears.)
- At the bottom of the search window, click Create filter.
- Choose what you want the filter to do. Skip the inbox (archive) and file it for you.
- Click Create Filter.
This only affects new emails arriving in your inbox and is not retroactive. However, you can go back and filter old messages from your inbox.
In other cases, you can also skip the inbox entirely by using a burner email.
Use a burner email
What most people don’t realize is that there is one common mistake that causes them to be spammed even more and sign up for even more junk email: using your real email address and phone number!
Luckily, it’s easy and cheap (and sometimes even free) to access so-called “burner” options to use in an emergency to access a website or conduct business online.
Think of all the reasons you might give out your email address without thinking: signing up for a new account, emailing a business with a question, or getting a coupon code—to name a few.
If you reveal your email address, you put yourself at risk of junk mail, malware, and an inbox full of spam messages. This is where a burner email comes in handy.
Burner email addresses are disposable and can be used in place of your primary email addresses. There are several ways to get one.
Temp Mail offers a temporary, anonymous and available email address. No registration is required for the free version. Keep in mind that the service doesn’t automatically delete your temporary email address (it’s up to you) and you won’t be able to send email. Emails are stored for about two hours before being automatically deleted.
10MinuteMail is another popular option that also allows you to send emails. As the name suggests, email and address will be deleted in 10 minutes. If you receive an important message that you don’t want to lose, you can forward it to another email address. No personal information is required to get started, which is a nice bonus.
But Gmail also lets you create free aliases tied to your primary inbox. They come in handy for filtering emails or seeing how your email address ended up on a spam list. (More on that below.)
If you have access to Gmail’s Workspace Labs features, let Gmail compose an email for you. If you don’t see the option, you can sign up for access to AI features in Gmail, which has a free trial
write it for me
If you have access to Gmail’s Workspace Labs features, let Gmail compose an email for you. Start a new draft and below you will see a plus sign with a pencil next to it. Click on it to see some options.
- Help me write creates an email based on a prompt you type. You can also use it to make an email more formal, shorter or longer.
Don’t see the option? Here you can sign up to access AI features. Note: After the free trial, you will need to pay for an upgraded Workspace account.
Gmail’s Nudges feature brings back any old emails you may have forgotten to reply to — and lets you know when a recipient hasn’t replied. You can also enable/disable nudges by recipient
Like a free personal assistant
Nudges will bring back old emails that you may have forgotten to reply to – or let you know if your recipient hasn’t replied. These are enabled by default. If they drive you nuts or you’ve turned them off before, here’s the option.
- Click Settings > View All Settings.
- Under General, scroll to Nudges. You can opt in or out of emails that you need to reply to or follow up on.
Find out who is selling your data
You want a coupon for this online store, but you’re smart enough to think twice. This is where Gmail’s alias feature comes in handy.
Create an alias and you can easily search your email — and see if your information is being shared.
You can do this quickly by adding a word and a plus sign to your email address when sharing.
For our coupon example, simply enter your Gmail address as “your email [email protected]”. You can create such aliases at any time and with any combination of words or letters.
Get more keyboard shortcuts
You can copy, paste, and perform other simple commands without changing the settings. However, some require you to enable shortcuts.
- Click Settings > View All Settings.
- Under General, scroll to Keyboard Shortcuts. turn it on
- Click Save Changes at the bottom of the page.
The full list can be found here. But for now, here are a few to get you started:
- A single letter does a lot: c opens a new draft, p opens the previous message in a conversation, and n displays the next message
- Ctrl + Enter on Windows or Command + Enter on Mac to send an email.
- blow ! to mark a conversation as spam or to mute it.
- Use Shift + R to reply in a new window.
Save yourself the embarrassment
You hit send… and then realized you called Todd “Tom” instead. With Gmail, you can retrieve an email without the recipient noticing—if you’re fast enough.
After sending a message, you will see “Message Sent” on the bottom left and an option to “Undo” or “View Message”. Click Undo.
You can adjust the time to have more time to unsend:
- Click the gear icon in the top-right corner of the Gmail menu, then click View All Settings.
- Next to Undo Send, choose a send cancellation period of 5, 10, 20, or 30 seconds. You can also choose 30 seconds.
Track your tasks
Gmail makes it easy to set up reminders right in the app. This is a good option if you use your inbox as a to-do list and things get mixed up.
- On the right, click Tasks, which looks like a blue circle icon with a check mark. If you don’t see it, click the little arrow in the lower-right corner.
- Click Add Task, then give it a name, details, and due date.
- When you’re done, click the X in the top right corner.
You can add an email to an existing task. Right-click the email and choose Add to Task. This integrates the message as part of your memory.
Set up a one-stop shop
Got an old Yahoo, Outlook, or AOL address? It’s tedious to check multiple inboxes. Importing can be a good way to phase out old email addresses and check fewer accounts.
- Click the Settings cog > View All Settings > Accounts & Import.
- Scroll down to Import emails and contacts and click Import emails and contacts. Enter the email address you want to import from in the provided field in the pop-up window.
- Sign in to this email address to confirm access.
Note: Only messages are transferred, no folders or labels. Therefore, you need to reorganize all messages imported from other accounts once they arrive in Gmail.
Concentrate on the task at hand
When you start a new email, Gmail places the window in the lower-right corner. If you’re distracted by chat and the rest of your inbox, click the small diagonal arrow in the top-right corner of the window. A larger window will immediately appear in the center of your screen.
Expand your vision
It’s annoying to click through pages of emails. That will help.
To change the number of visible messages, click Settings. Under “General,” look for “Maximum Page Size.” You can see up to 100 conversations at once.
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