Here’s the Best Way to Organize Your Gmail Inbox
 

Email inbox gimmicks keep popping up. First Google introduced Priority Inbox, now it’s using category tabs. Dropbox purchased Mailbox, which turns your inbox into more of a to-do-list. Microsoft’s Outlook.com has a Sweep feature that automatically cleans your inbox.

All of these are attempts to manage your email inbox for you. These gimmicks are never as smart as you yourself are, so you can make your email much smarter by taking a more active role.

We’ll be using Gmail here, but the principles should be similar for any email client.
Use a Classic Inbox

First, we’ll get rid of whatever gimmicky inbox Gmail is using today. These inboxes never get the categories and prioritization perfectly right. They force you to go through all your email to ensure you don’t miss anything and encourage you to keep getting spammy useless emails by sweeping them under the rug.

To use a more classic inbox in Gmail, click the gear icon and select Settings. Click over to the Inbox tab, click the Inbox type box, and select Unread first. All the tabs and priority options will vanish.

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