Best Apps to Help You Manage Email Overload


If you’re like most people, your inbox is constantly overflowing with unread email. In all of that chaos, it’s way too easy for important messages to get buried.
Here are nine apps that will help you manage email overload, whether it’s mass-deleting, mass-unsubscribing, or snoozing emails — plus a bonus email feature guaranteed to increase your productivity.
Best Apps For Managing Email Overload in 2022
- Best For Bulk Cleaning — Clean Email
- Best For Mass-Deleting Email — Mailstrom
- Best For Unsubscribing — Unroll.me
- Best For Email Sorting — Sanebox
- Best For Reminders — FollowUpThen
- Best For Outlook Users — ClearContext
- Best For Gmail Users — Gmelius
- Best High End Option — Superhuman
- Best For Collaborative Teams — Front
- Bonus —The Email Hack You Didn’t Know You Had
Clean Email
- Best For: Bulk cleaning your inbox within minutes.
- Why We Love It: Clean Email’s smart “bulk clean” feature makes it easy to get started and its automation features make it easy to keep your inbox organized. Overall the interface is easy to use and integrates with any email provider.
- Works On: Anywhere you read emails, including your desktop, laptop, and phone.
- Who Is It For? People who need an affordable solution that works within minutes.
- How Much Does It Cost? Plans start at $9.99/month.
- Top Features: Bulk clean, smart filters, automation, easy unsubscribe, email snooze
Mailstrom
- Best For: Mass deleting old or unwanted emails.
- Why We Love It: Mailstrom pulls in your email into a web interface that helps you organize and mass-delete your emails in bulk. All related emails are consolidated to allow you to delete or file a group of emails with just one click. Plus, unlike other email management apps, Mailstrom doesn’t use AI to read and sort your emails, which helps keep your emails and personal information private.
- Works On: Most major email providers like Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, AOL, or any email provider that supports IMAP.
- Who Is It For? People whose inboxes are at max capacity and who don’t want algorithms reading through their mail.
- How Much Does It Cost? Plans start at $9.00/month.
- Top Features: Email deleting, filters/sorting, email snooze
Unroll.Me
- Best For: Unsubscribing from all those newsletters.
- Why We Love It: Unroll.Me makes it easy to unsubscribe from unwanted emails. But where they really shine is with their feature that allows you to “roll up” emails or newsletters into a single daily digest.
- Works On: Most major email providers like Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, AOL, or Apple Mail as well as iOS or Android.
- Who Is It For? People whose inboxes are being overrun by newsletters, advertisements, and spam.
- How Much Does It Cost? Free
- Top Features: Email unsubscribe, daily digest
Sanebox
- Best For: Sorting and filtering to keep your inbox clean.
- Why We Love It: Sanebox integrates with any email provider and learns how to prioritize your emails based on past behavior. It creates a new folder called SaneLater where messages from your inbox that the app deems are low priority are placed. At the end of the day, you receive a daily digest of all of the emails that were placed in this folder so that you don’t miss anything that could have potentially been important.
- Works On: All email providers and devices.
- Who Is It For? People looking for smart sorting without the worry that emails will get lost.
- How Much Does It Cost? Plans start at $2.00/month
- Top Features: Email sorting, filtering, snooze, easy unsubscribe
FollowUpThen
- Best For: Making sure you’re reminded about important follow-ups to emails and meetings.
- Why We Love It: FollowUpThen is easy to use, doesn’t require installing any special apps or add-ons, and makes sure you actually remember to follow up on those critical tasks.
- Works On: All email clients and devices.
- Who Is It For? People wanting a minimalist solution to follow-ups.
- How Much Does It Cost? Free for up to 50 follow-ups/month.
- Top Features: Email reminders, follow-ups
ClearContext
- Best For: Microsoft Outlook power users.
- Why We Love It: ClearContext, an add-on for Microsoft Outlook, is an email management system that does more than just organize your emails; it helps organize your workday. It looks at which emails you’re replying to most often and prioritizes the messages in your inbox based on this. It also turns your emails into tasks so you won’t overlook anything. For example, you can easily turn an email into a task or appointment with a single click.
- Works On: Outlook only.
- Who Is It For? People who are already using Microsoft Outlook and want to increase their productivity with a comprehensive email management system.
- How Much Does It Cost? $8.95/month
- Top Features: Email filtering, sorting, snooze, reminders
Gmelius
- Best For: Gmail and Google Suite users.
- Why We Love It: Your team doesn’t need yet another software system or tool, but they do need a better way to work together on projects. Introducing Gmelius, which integrates directly into your inbox and makes it easy to collaborate on projects, customer support, and sales all in one place.
- Works On: Gmail only.
- Who Is It For? People who want to add even more features to their Gmail account and powerful collaborating tools.
- How Much Does It Cost? Starts at $7/month per user.
- Top Features: Email filtering, reminders, collaboration
Superhuman
- Best For: Users who are willing to pay a little more to get all the bells and whistles with an interface that works as well as it looks.
- Why We Love It: With the amount of time you spend on emails each day, Superhuman believes that your inbox experience should be fast, effortless, and visually gorgeous. And they deliver, with intuitive shortcuts, a minimalistic design that looks incredible, and all the features you’d expect from other email apps, combined into one.
- Works On: Gmail and Outlook, plus iOS.
- Who Is It For? People who are looking (and willing to pay) for a next-level email experience.
- How Much Does It Cost? $30/month.
- Top Features: Email shortcuts, insights from connected social media accounts, undo send, read receipts
Front
- Best For: Teams who need to turn their inbox into a collaborative working environment.
- Why We Love It: Front allows you to combine all your team’s communication channels into one workspace – your email. It’s great for those looking to take their customer service to the next level, especially if you’re working remote. Because Front is its own platform, it integrates with Gmail, Slack, Twitter, or anywhere else you or your customers are.
- Works On: Integrates with most communication tools and has its own API.
- Who Is It For? Teams, especially those in sales or customer service roles.
- How Much Does It Cost? $19/month per user.
- Top Features: Email collaboration, workflow collaboration, email delegation
Bonus: The Email Hack You Didn’t Know You Had
Our favorite email hack is to use the features you already have!
The best email providers already have light versions of most of the tools and features we listed above designed right into your inbox.
The Top Features Already Built Into Gmail and Outlook
- Smart Reply
- Smart Compose
- Canned Responses
- Schedule and Snooze Emails
- Email Filtering and Sorting
- Reminders
- Confidential Mode
Learn how to find these and see more features for Gmail and tips for Outlook.
More Strategies For Inbox Management
If you’re looking for more ways to manage your inbox, a new email management app is a great place to start. But to keep your inbox streamlined, you’ll also need to take a critical look at your email habits.
At the end of the day, true email management and true productivity start beyond the inbox. Here’s how top executives are reducing their busy work to finally start getting critical work done.
Updated on July 29th, 2022