Do you ever feel a bit overwhelmed when you see just how many emails you have in your Inbox? I know I do, and it’s not even as if deleting them would solve the problem – most of them are things that I need to hang onto for my records, or things I want to read later but don’t have time to look at now.
But one method I’ve found that really helps is to create different folders for different types of emails, which I can then use to file my emails so they’re a bit more organised. Some email providers will do this for you, to an extent, for example Gmail will filter your emails into “Social” i.e. emails from Facebook and similar sites, “Promotions” i.e. marketing emails from companies, “Updates” and “Primary”.
But you can create your own folders in pretty much any email app or program, so I’ll explain how to do it in a few of the most common email apps. You can then move your emails from the main Inbox into those folders, so you don’t have a big glaring number of unread emails staring you in the face every time you open your Inbox.
So I’ll start with Outlook. If you look at the list of folders down the left hand side of the window, you should see your email address in bold, with folders like “Inbox”, “Junk Email”, “Drafts” etc underneath it.
Next to that should be a three dots menu button – click on that, then click on “Create new folder” and one will appear at the bottom of the list. Give it a sensible name and hit the Enter key to create it, then open an email you want to put in there and click on “Move to” at the top, and choose the folder you just made.
In Gmail, they call their folders “labels”, just to be awkward, but the process is pretty simple. Click on the “+” symbol next to “Labels” on the left hand side, give it a name and then click on “Create”.
Then open an email you want to move and look for an icon near the top that looks like a folder with an arrow pointing right on it and click on that, then choose where to move it to. On smartphones and tablets, you can move an email by opening it, tapping on the three dots in the very top right corner and choosing “Move to”, but you can’t create a new label for some silly reason.
In Apple’s Mail app, how you do it depends on what device you’re using. On iPads and iPhones, bring up the side panel with your “Mailboxes” (as Apple calls them) and tap on “Edit” in the top right of the column.
Tap on “New Mailbox” at the bottom, give it a name and tap on “Save”, then on “Done” at the top. Open an email you want to move, tap on the folder icon and then choose the new mailbox.
On Macs, choose “Mailbox”, then “New Mailbox”, give it a name and click OK. You can then drag the emails from your Inbox into whichever mailbox you choose.