We have all felt overwhelmed by our Inbox at some point or other – I like to keep mine to a minimum, but with a business account, a personal account, and an ‘other, it can be really hard to keep track of all the ‘stuff’ that I’ve subscribed to over the years.
Not to mention other people I know, who have upwards of 5500 in their work inbox!
If you’re the same and need a little help in this department, then I’d recommend you look at using a tool to help you to unsubscribe from receiving mail that is out-of-date or simply not relevant to your current needs.
To save you time, I’ve listed 5 of the current main unsubscription tools below for you to choose from (in alphabetical order, not order of preference). Please check individual websites for updated integrations or pricing information!
Happy unsubscribing…
Mailstrom
DESCRIPTION: Mailstrom offers an extra layer of organisation for your inbox, and identifies bundles of related mail and makes it easy for you to act on them as a group.
BASIC COST: $9 pm / 59.95 py
FREE TRIAL AVAILABLE: yes, with limitations
SAFETY: Always check the T&Cs that you are agreeing to
COMPATIBLE WITH: Google Apps, Outlook, Yahoo, IMAP*
Sanebox
DESCRIPTION: Prioritises your incoming email so that you see the actual important emails that matter and that are relevant to your day. Less important emails are automatically filtered into a separate folder [SaneLater] and then summarised in a daily digest.
BASIC COST: $7pm
FREE TRIAL AVAILABLE: yes, for 2 weeks
SAFETY: They stipulate that they will never share your data
COMPATIBLE WITH: Google Apps, iCloud, Office 365, Outlook, Yahoo
Cleanfox
DESCRIPTION: Swipe-based app that helps you get rid of the emails you don’t need, while also keeping you up-to-date on how this helps the environment
BASIC COST: Free
FREE TRIAL AVAILABLE: N/A
SAFETY: Will not sell it for advertising, profiling and identification purposes
COMPATIBLE WITH: Google Apps, iCloud, Office 365, Outlook, Yahoo
Unroll Me
Unroll Me has temporarily suspended its service in the EU due to GDPR.
DESCRIPTION: Analyses your inbox for all commercial newsletters and offers that you receive. You can then unsubscribe from these with one click. The follow-up functionality is called ‘Rollup’, where you receive all of the subscriptions you have chosen to keep in one email, which you can set to receive any time of day that you want.
BASIC COST: Free
FREE TRIAL AVAILABLE: n/a
SAFETY: Accused in 2017 of selling customer details to Uber, so be wary and read T&Cs carefully
COMPATIBLE WITH: AOL, Gmail, Google Apps, Hotmail, iCloud, Live Mail, MSN, Outlook, Yahoo
Unsubscriber
DESCRIPTION: After you sign up, an Unsubscribe folder is created in your inbox. You then drag in unwanted email and Unsubscriber will block email from those senders from entering your inbox.
Unsubscriber notifies the sender that you want to unsubscribe from their email list. Until that happens, new emails from that sender will be moved to your Unsubscribe folder.
BASIC COST: Free
FREE TRIAL AVAILABLE: n/a
SAFETY: Always check the small print, to ensure you can opt out of data sharing
COMPATIBLE WITH: AOL, Gmail, Hotmail, Live Mail, Office 365, Outlook, Yahoo, IMAP*
* IMAP – Internet Message Access Protocol – lets you access your email messages via the Internet, wherever you are, on any device, by connecting with the server they are stored on and letting you read it directly from the server.
*POP – Post Office Protocol – contacts your email server and downloads all your new messages from it, and once they have been downloaded, they are deleted from the server and are unavailable apart from the device you’ve accessed them on.
Hope your inbox is looking squeaky clean and free from junk mail!
By Laura Forsyth