An EASY Trick to CLEAN Your E-Mail Inbox - Apple Mail

👍Here is an EASY and FREE trick to clean out your e-mail inbox using the "rules" feature in Apple Mail to identify the common characteristics of messages that tend to be junk.

Please note: This feature will be best left ON for some people and for others it may be best to just simply turn this feature on and then off quickly as needed (especially anyone in business who may be receiving business-related messages from people whom they have not previously corresponded.)

In order for this to work on your computer, you are going to need a Mac and have your e-mail linked up with the Apple Mail application. This can also be done in Outlook and perhaps some kind person will leave the instructions for how to recreate this feature on a Windows PC in the comments section.

STEP 1: Create A Mailbox
This is so we have a place to store all the messages that are about to be identified as "probably junk." You could also optionally use the pre-existing "junk" mailbox, however because there is a certain risk of missing legit e-mails, I tend to recommend keeping them separate.

STEP 2: Create Your Rule
The two main aspects of this rule involve people who are not already saved into your contacts and people who are NOT previous recipients (meaning at some point in time you have corresponded with each other).

Once the emails have been filtered, consider sorting the messages by who they are from (instead of the date). This will make clearing out groups of messages a lot faster.

Thank you for watching this video. Please leave us a comment below if it helped you!

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[jeffbranning]

David, I love all your YouTube classes! Your classes are awesome and I’ve referred a number of people to your channel to learn more about anything Apple.

[damonrobinson]

David, I bought my first Mac in 1994 so you could say I’m familiar with the platform. You are the go to for the most straightforward and useful Mac help that I can remember. Thanks for all you do. Happy new year.

[marthagirgenti]

As always I learn something new from you at each class. You have a way of explaining the topic very throughly and you make it easy to follow which not everyone has that teaching knack. Thank you again looking forward to next year’s classes. Your long time student!

[philipbloss]

Thank you so much for all your help throughout 2018! Your videos over the years have been so invaluable in my learning how to use my MacBooks but in my transition to all things apple, my iPhones & iPad Pro. In a previous comment, I told you how I once used PCs, Android phones and Android pads. After changing & being totally lost. I was so lucky in finding your videos very quickly. You not only make the videos informative the energy you put into each video entertaining. I wish you a Mery Christmas and Happy New Year. Phil..

[rebeccak]

You are definitely my apple guru guy. My brother told go with apple. Like all things there are ups and downs... you seem to navigate all apple’s quirks as they come along! Thanks for your dedication! FYI... I’ll be calling for lessons.

[wsforster]

Dear David, I am an occasional viewer of your clips - but all of them have been very educational. I want to thank you for your generosity and wish you a joyous christmas, Wolfgang

[CatherineBaliikya]

WOW....Thank you, David your Lesson was very helpful. My Mailbox was a massive clutter and needed a great cleaning up and now it is going to be cleaned in a simple and easy way. Thank you, thank you, thank you

[violetstoneycreek]

oh my God.Thank you very much, David! I had emails in archive for the last 3 years and was trying to delete them manually by clicking on trash icon. had a rule to delete at least 100 per day. with your help delete in sec today.!!! will watch all your videos. Back to school!

[hanswurst]

I appreciate the effort. Instead of going through this complicated process though and risk getting important mails pushed into that junk folder you could just scroll to the end of the emails and hit unsubscribe. Thats it. Done. Also when u sign up somewhere just uncheck the newsletter tickbox. That way you dont get any mails you dont want.

[LuisSanchez-lzzq]

I've been using this trick from the day that you first released the video and it has made my life so much easier. Thanks for such great content!

[cosmicvoid]

Great video. I was looking all over for a way to organize my inbox better. While I like the Smart Mailboxes option, it doesn't quite do what I want. I want those emails to be moved out of my main inbox like having different folders in Outlook. I can do that with the Mailboxes option.Then just add those to my favorites and change the "unread count" and "notifications" preferences to "All Mailboxes". Now I can still be alerted to new emails that are only going to show in those folders or "Mailboxes" :) It is unfortunate that you can't apply the rules to your whole account though. You just have to do it on one device like your Mac and it will sync across the others as long as your Mac is online.

[mikem]

I always leave a like on David’s videos before I finish watching them because they are always great 👍🏻 Thanks for all the classes, Merry Christmas 🎄🎁

[RensWesterhof]

Thank David and a happy new year from Holland. I have a question. in this class you add the emailadresses to your contacts. it would be better when you add the emailadress to a certain group within contacts. So you can filter this emailadresses from the adresses form your family etc etc. otherwise your contacts will be garbage in time.

[VinnieSutra]

Rules & Filters: Things I had completely forgotten about from back in my Y2K Windows Days. Thanks for the reminder, I just moved out a ton of clutter. 👍

[graciestudiogold]

Excellent video's, thank you for your time in sharing. Have a fantastic Christmas to you and your family and a prosperous New Year..

[haley]

new to apple and would like to thank you for how you explain things in limens terms you have really help me with some things I could not do. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

[karld]

David,

Thanks so much for your amazing videos. I throughly enjoy view them and as others I too have passed them along to my friends and family. Hope you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Looking forward to your future classes. Best wishes, Karl

[deborahpardal]

Do you have an update for this in 2022? I don't see the same options when making RULES now. Thanks

[bmcalderon]

Great info and videos!!! I bought a new Mac book air and I do not want to migrate from older Mac. I would like to specifically move over “Mail” and have it just like I had it on my older Mac. Is there a good way to do this?? Thank you so very much for any help.

[ralphwoodard]

Hi David, another excellent video as usual and I learned from it. On a sidenote, what is your Camera slightly tilted to the left when you filmed this? It looks like it had a bit of a tilt. Seasons greetings and see you next year.