Gmail Hacks for Organizing Your Inbox and Boosting Efficiency

Google mail was launched in April 2004, and it has been retained and maintained its relevance ever since. It is now one of the most effective email services in the world of today. Gmail has attained an outstanding performance and has a significant number of over 1.5 billion active users monthly in 2018. However, like any other primary service, Gmail causes big headaches, especially during workdays. Here are some stats that show the state of email usage in different workplaces. Just 38% of the average inbox is seen as relevant and essential; limiting email access reduces stress levels. An average individual utilizes 28% of their week to read and respond to email. A mail interruption needs about 64 seconds on average for a person to recover and return to work. All these show the reasons for the need to organize your inbox. This way, your efficiency is enhanced, and you get to live a healthier life. 

Gmail is relatively straightforward, but it might take time and effort to learn it well. Hence, there are different features you need to get accustomed to so you can sort your Gmail out such that it looks better and functions better. To that end, there are several ways to layout your inbox view in your Gmail account. These ways are as follows: Default, Important First, Starred First, Priority inbox, and Unread First. Recognizing these layouts and knowing how to arrange them will go a long way in your Gmail organization. 

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After doing the needed things we’ve mentioned above, you can go further using specific Gmail hacks to suit your needs. Bear in mind that applying these hacks can function differently for everyone, but once you know the basics of the hacks, it should work correctly for you. 

No more Deleting, Archive Instead 

Every Gmail Suite user can store up to 30 GB of content for free, unlike 15 GB with G Suite free edition or individual consumer accounts. The storage is distributed between Google Drive, Google Photos, Gmail. Since you have a lot of space, archiving should not make a difference. When you delete, the conversation ends forever, but the conversations remain though not in sight when you archive. Archiving puts labeled messages out of your inbox that is ‘away,’ but it is appropriately grouped in relevant labels. 

How to Create a Group in Gmail

Sending a group email starts outside Gmail. You can’t find the button to create a group in Gmail interface, but you should go to Google contacts to create a group in Gmail. The first step is to go to contacts.google.com, click on the ‘Create label’ located on the left side of the window. Name the label and select ‘Save.’ Then click ‘Contacts’ from the left side, and choose the list of contacts you wish to add to your group. The next step is to click ‘labels’ from the flag icon at the top of the window and lastly select ‘Apply.’ Viola! There you have your group in your Gmail. 

Optimizing your Inbox Density Display

The interface of your Gmail comes with several display settings to aid the organization of your Gmail according to your needs. At the top right of your screen, the gear icon hides the Display Settings feature that comes with three options: Default, Compact, and Comfortable. Default displays information about every information in your inbox, like attachments, before even opening the message at all. The compact view allows you to maximize your screen area usage so you can scan over as many messages as possible at one time. The Comfortable view displays fewer messages at once, but it can feel ‘comfortable’ if you are the type to feel overwhelmed by seeing several messages within the compact view. 

Activate ‘Undo Send’

Do you know how annoying it is to send an email too early or to the wrong recipient? Perhaps you misspelled the recipient’s name or any other silly mistakes. Thanks to Gmail’s setting, you can now toggle on an option to ‘unsend’ emails for up to 30 seconds after it was sent. 

Using Automatic Filters 

If you are in a client-facing role, you’d be receiving several emails from clients daily. Perhaps, you subscribe to lots of newsletters and get task notifications from your project management platform. In other words, you receive various messages very frequently, which ought to be attended to. What do you do then? Setting up filters automatically sorts your emails into specific labels. To set the filters, go to the settings and select the ‘Filters and Blocked Addresses’ tab. Once that is done, follow the prompts to create custom filters you prefer by choosing emails based on the subject line, sender, included and excluded words, etc.