E-Mail Inbox | Pad Patter 7.29.16.

Yep! I am right there with you. I'm at 20,763 as of this morning. I haven't found a method that will work for me to keep it down yet.

 

Haha! You are not alone, I know that much. I just tend to be the opposite. I can't. Nope. Nope. Nope.



My friend and I had this discussion. She doesn't care and can ignore it, while I have to at least mark them off read. (I do keep ones that I need to read later unmarked). I can't ignore a red balloon with too high a number. It makes me twitch. Now... don't get me wrong. I don't take action right away, I just dislike that little red balloon.

I'm also the weirdo who has her apps alphabetical in folders A-F, G-L, M-R, S-Z. I do keep a few games on the front too that I play a lot. Though, I only have one screen and no side scrolling for apps.

 

Yikes! Yep, I'm one that gets twitchy when I see the little red notification boxes. They have to go. I check email at least once a day, sometimes many times, and it either gets deleted or moved in to a folder.

I do this, too!!

 

lol! Jan... I am not alone! Yay! @IntenseMagic

 

i thought i was bad ... i only have 19,390 unopened emails in my gmail account!

 

ummm ... I have the PERFECT solution. Turn off the flippin' notifications for your email!!!!!!!!! Done. No stress. No worries. Carry on your day in perfectly sublime guilt free delight!!!

 

I thought I was bad!!! My husband twitches when he glances at my email account.
I use gmail... on my phone, I have "inbox" to manage it.
I have 145 emails in my inbox "personal", 0 in "social", ~1350 in "promotions" and ~250 in "updates"
not all are unread. Most of the unread ones are in promotions and updates. newsletters, automatic bill emails, sales, etc. I scroll through several times a week, and try to read/sort or read/delete, but a lot of time, I just scroll past and ignore. I try to make use of the folder before making a purchase, by looking to see if I have coupons, or sale offers from someone or something specific. Ones I find a lot of that I get no value from, I unsubscribe.
Every so often, I get too overwhelmed with what's there, and unsorted, so I just move everything to an "unsorted" folder (currently has under 1000, and only 300 unread), and then as I do searches (i use the search function a LOT), I delete or sort in batches.

My phone automatically puts the apps in alphabetical order when they are downloaded. My tablet, however, does not. And it drives me crazy because I can't find them! I do separate my home screens, and use the swipe feature.

 

Courtney (my teenaged daughter) has a brilliant method. Her first page of her app screen is empty. She does that so she can see the wall paper picture.

So ... she opens her phone and then just swipes to the second screen and all her stuff is there. Or she just opens her phone and double clicks the home button and it brings up whatever she has open. She's sort of obsessive about closing apps too. She also has the setting turned on to reply to texts from her lock screen.

 

Folders Folders Folders! I try to keep 25 or fewer in my inbox.

 

No. Never ever ever EVER have I had that many emails in my inbox. I want to tap that pic to open your email and go through them for you rotfl! Here's my Gmail... zero unread. My other email account has 12 cuz they are the receipts and "your item has shipped" emails for some online purchases. Once everything arrives I'll move or delete the emails as necessary. Oh and there's the receipt of payment for DS's school. I do need to make a "schoolyard 2016-2017" subfolder. Anyway, I don't think I've had more than 20 unread emails ever. I also don't like snail mail to accumulate. DH just plops mail in a pile: he had mortgage statements for 9 months just mixed in with a bunch of junk mail. I almost had a heart attack when I found that pile in a kitchen cupboard(!).
Sorry the date isn't on the pic but I promise it's from today.

 

For some reason, on my phone my Mail reader says I only have 20 unread emails but on my computer (same app, Mac Mail) it says I have 1953 unread. I vaguely remember a setting that lets you choose whether it counts only mail in your inbox or also mail in any folders you've created, so perhaps I chose different settings for my phone and computer.

This year I have been in a transition and haven't settled into a new system for email. Years ago I had a system of many folders and about 50 rules (filters) in my Mail reader on my computer. So that kept the amount of mail in my Inbox down and a number would show up on my folders to tell me when they contained new mail. It was a great system for being able to find a particular email I needed. For example, I had a folder for each homeschool group I was in, so when I needed to refer to an event with one of the groups, I'd go to that group's folder and easily find it. It helped me focus too. However, there were a lot of folders I ignored most of the time. I was interested in the newsletters or whatever was being filed into them, but I don't have time to read *everything* that sounds interesting, unfortunately.

It was the Verizon strike that led to my current email transition situation. My Verizon email stopped working. I stopped receiving email and couldn't send any. So I switched to a Gmail account. I resubscribed to only a small fraction of the newsletters I used to get (I still get all the TLP designer newsletters!) and I have only made a few folders. Mostly it has been going fine, but it has also been summer. I'm going to be getting more emails, especially from our local homeschool group, in the coming weeks, so I've been thinking I'd better figure my new mail system soon!

 

I try to keep my email inbox (and everything else too) clear of notification bubbles. The notification bubbles tell me when I have new mail, when I have a missed call, when I have an update to install, etc. but I do not like having red bubbles around for more than a day!

The email is pretty easy for me now since I took the time to set it up in a way that works for me. I use gmail with three email accounts (one for work and two personal) so I have it set up to label and/or filter a lot of stuff automatically as it comes in. I also check email several times during the day when I'm at work. I delete junk immediately, flag/star important things, and archive the rest. I hoard a lot of stuff (over 50,000 messages between the three accounts) but with everything labeled and in folders, its usually easy to find whatever I might be looking for.

 

I'm like your polar opposite Jen!

I have 0 unread emails and 8 emails in my inbox - all follow ups for this weekend. The majority of my emails are filtered, so I can look through the folder at one time. I don't use the promotions thing in Gmail, I filter myself.

I also have a lot of emails that are auto filtered to the trash can. Like the local pizza place - we don't have pizza every week, so I don't need to waste time on their email every week. But when we do decide on pizza, I can go grab the latest Coupon from the trash. So, my trash folder has a lot of unread emails, but that doesn't affect me.

 

I did have a hotmail inbox like that. It took me a full day to delete everything and/or set up rules for moving forward. Even with that, I have way too many emails. I subscribe to Unroll Me, but that doesn't even help as much as I'd like. I really just need to stop signing up for every email list. :/

My gmail accounts aren't so bad. I have two and rarely use them. I have about 1200 in each of those. :/

 

Oh my gosh! That's brilliant. I have an advertisements folder and mail rules to filter all those kinds of emails so they're not cluttering up my Inbox, but your method saves even more time!

Now I've been working on organizing my mail this afternoon and I forgot about the TLP chat that must have ended an hour ago. Bummer!

 

Are you all mad ? LOL ( I always wanted to use this smily )just junk filter the stuff , how can you stand an inbox like that? quite apart from the nasty stuff that can be attached to the junk. Currently I have 16 unread mails , and 10 of those are pinterest, and they get sorted ,at night when insomania strikes,from my kindle. I actually remove the trash too, every 2 weeks or so.....my desk in RL is messy though

 

If you want to feel good about your hoards of emails, most of the unread are promotional stuff I keep meaning to unsubscribe from or download links (to be fair I've had this email addy 14 or so years)