If you have a hard time handling your inbox, your not alone. This guide will give you a couple tips and tricks to handle it gracefully

Use tags

Tags are one of the best features for any digital classification system. The power of tags (as opposed to folder trees) is you can combine different classification systems to one same set of elements. A many to many relationship is much more suitable for digital elements which, in practice, live in multiple places at the same time¹.

Using a directory tree has helped for many years as a digital analogy to the real world, where files could only be in one place at a time. But that system is obsolete.

You should tag every mail that comes into your inbox, and you should do so automatically. This helps

1. As a visual aid: Will quickly help determine wether an email requires your attention or not.
2. As a search aid: Will quickly help you find old emails you need to resurface

To apply tags automatically, you can click on the more button on an email, and Filter messages like this. Then remember applying the tag to the conversation, and you should be ready to go.

Some labels I use

• newsletter
• documents
• bills
• payments
• orders
• taxes
• press
• real-estate
• work
• friends²

Use Shortcuts

While all shortcuts might not be for you. And there is a very long list of them. You can really automatize several of your most used actions just by using shortcuts.

1. Go to Settings > Advanced > Keyboard Shortcuts
2. Then go to Settings > Keyboard Shortcuts tab and find your preferred.

My favorites are

• l: Apply label
• gi: Go to inbox
• arrows: Navigate
• a: Reply all

Use Scripts

You might not know how to code, but worry not, @labnol has you covered with his guide https://www.labnol.org/internet/gmail-unsubscribe/28806/. This guide was written in 2017, 7 years ago as I write this, and it has aged perfectly well.

1. Create a copy of Gmail Unsubscriber sheet
2. Go to the Gmail menu in the Google Sheet (see screenshot above) and choose Configure. Allow the script to access to your Gmail account. It is an open source Google Script that runs does not store or upload a single byte of your data.
3. In the inbox box, enter a name of your Gmail label (the default is Unsubscribe) and all emails marked with this label will be unsubscribed. Save your changes.

All together

Start reading your inbox… and when you’re reading an email

1. If it’s spam: Type l for label, and label the message with Unsubscribe , the script will automatically unsubscribe.
2. If it’s a type of email you receive frequently. Find an existing label for them. Only if there is no close relation to any existing label, create one. Here is an sample of the labels I have
3. If it’s labeled: Read it and send it to the archive.

Cleanup

Every now and then (I like doing this every 3-6mo) you should review the amount of emails a given label is assigned. If there aren’t that many, it means the label is redundant. Do this:

1. Search all the mail with that tag
2. Assign it a different label (closest in classification)
3. Delete the tag

This is one of the most important steps in keeping things organized. Planning out is nice, but it’s the dirty job what brings things together.

Bonus track: Search like a pro

• -label:<your label here>
• has:attachment
• is:muted

1. Note this couldn’t easily be achieved or applied to tangible assets, and still can’t on a computer when you get to the physical layer. A file in your computer can be in multiple places at the same time and be the same file. However, at the lowest level, this is just a refercence to where the actual file is in disk. Only hard and soft links allow us to see a file from different places and treat them as if they were one.
2. I’m joking my friends don’t email me. I may not have friends.