r/declutter • u/bon18 • 5d ago

Advice Request Digital decluttering

My email is totally out of control. Can anyone recommend a method or software to help me with it? I'm honestly considering just getting a new email address at this point. The thought of going through it is overwhelming. Thanks!

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u/Vegetable_Tourist243 5d ago

whatever you do, don’t waste time doing it manually. i like to delete any emails older than two years.

- Type older_than:2y into the search bar at the top of your inbox and press Enter.

- Click the select-all checkbox in the top-left corner below the search bar to choose the first 50 emails on the page.

- Click the text that appears near the top: "Select all [number] conversations that match this search."

- Click the trash can icon to move all selected messages to the trash.

- Go to your Trash folder on the left menu, then click Empty Trash now to permanently free up your storage.

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u/Wood-ech 11h ago

Only adding to this that if you have potential for sentimental emails in there (for example, my parents sometimes send me old photos or videos of me and my brother, relatives who have passed, cute convos between me and my friends from high school, etc) search first for those by sender or by filtering for emails with attachments, and move them into a dedicated folder.