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Get your email inbox under control
A tidy inbox with filters that sort newsletters, receipts and updates automatically, plus a plan for clearing the backlog.
When to use it
Once, then a quick monthly tidy
Step by step
List your most frequent senders
Scroll through your last few weeks of email and jot down the senders that show up most, such as shops, newsletters, banks, school and social media.
Ask for a filing plan
Paste the list into your AI assistant with this prompt.
Prompt to copyHelp me organise my personal email. Here are my most frequent senders and roughly how often they email: [list]. Suggest 5 to 7 simple labels or folders (for example Receipts, Newsletters, Bills, Family and school, Travel). Assign each sender to one, and say whether it should skip the inbox or stay in it. Suggest which newsletters I might unsubscribe from based on how often they arrive. Then give me a 15-minute-a-day plan to clear my backlog over a week. Keep the instructions general enough for Gmail or Outlook.Create the filters or rules
In Gmail's settings, under Filters, or in Outlook's rules, create one rule per label using the senders the AI grouped. Start with the biggest groups.
Unsubscribe as you go
Use the unsubscribe link at the top or bottom of newsletters you no longer read.
Clear the backlog
Follow the daily plan. Archiving old emails in bulk by date is usually safe and much faster than deleting one by one.
What you get
Labels: Receipts (online shops, takeaway apps: skip inbox), Newsletters (6 senders: skip inbox, unsubscribe from 3), Bills (energy, phone: stay in inbox), Family and school (school, clubs: stay in inbox, star). Day 1: archive everything older than 1 year.
Tips
- Be cautious with unsubscribe links in emails you don't recognise. For suspicious ones, mark as spam instead.
- Don't share email content with an AI tool, just sender names, for this recipe.