Debbie Mayo-Smith: Hands down the best email tip ever

Do you receive marketing emails? Especially some that you wouldn't have a clue where they got your email address? Photo / iStock

This is going to be short. Sweet. Perhaps a bit life changing if you get piles of emails.

Do you open your inbox each morning to dozens (yes, plural) of emails?

Do you receive marketing emails? Especially some that you wouldn't have a clue where they got your email address?

Do you get continuous flows from LinkedIn for all the varying reasons of connections, conversations, endorsements?

All these are irrelevant to your daily work flow. Yet some you might want to look over, at some time.

Here's the best email tip ever

If you've read my column over the years, you know I've written about Rules in your computer email program (filters in Gmail). This email function is marvellous because you give it a condition to look for; then an action to preform when it finds it.

For example if you work within a large company, you would be getting loads of email you're copied into.

You can create a rule or filter looking for emails that arrive with your name in the cc line and divert those emails into a special folder you created for them. In Gmail it would be apply a label.

Are you ready for the big reveal? Why not create a new folder, call it inbound newsletters (or something like that). Then create a rule looking for the word unsubscribe in the body of the email.

Add in a few permutations you might see such as manage email subscription, etc. By law, all marketing emails must have an unsubscribe function.

This simple, yet effective idea will instantly change your email management. Now my inbound newsletter folder holds 25-79 each day while the inbox receives the lower but more important emails directly.

By the way, if you use Gmail, you don't have to bother with this trick if you've turned on your categorised inbox. It will split your email into several tabs, one being promotional. In my account, it's never made a mistake yet.

Read about it here: The Gmail game changer you don't know about

You will find Rules in Outlook, Mac Mail, Lotus Notes. Gmail look for filters.

Interested in learning more Outlook tips?