Chan’s “One Tech Tip” was published Jan. 9 and framed inbox cleanup as a practical new-year task: clearing clutter in the inbox can reduce the risk of what could be taken in a data breach, and it can also make day-to-day work easier because users can find messages that matter without sifting through “reams of irrelevant ones,” the AP said.
The column described how many people accumulate a mix of receipts, bank and credit card statements, mobile phone bills, tickets, restaurant bookings, reminders, security warnings, and spam over time, with some personal messages from friends and family worth keeping. It also acknowledged a common obstacle: some inbox-management approaches, such as “inbox zero,” require dealing with every incoming email daily, which Chan said is hard for busy people and can lead to a backlog when messages keep piling up.
In its first set of steps, the AP pointed to attachment and size cleanup as a way to start. Chan said that even though modern email systems offer plenty of free storage, it still can be helpful to clear oversized messages because large attachments tend to build up. The column added a cybersecurity rationale, saying that if hackers gain access to email, a decluttered inbox reduces the amount of personal or financial information such as credit card details that could be targeted.
For Microsoft Outlook users, the column advised using the “Size” column or button to float the biggest messages to the top, then reviewing and deleting them, with a follow-up option to remove attachments by right-clicking the attachment. For Gmail users, Chan suggested using search settings to filter out messages that are “greater than” a chosen size—starting at an example of 20 megabytes—and then gradually reducing the threshold to eliminate more large emails.
Chan’s next guidance focused on sorting and filtering out categories of email that typically become outdated or are time-sensitive. The AP said the column recommends filtering by sender to delete newsletters and mailing lists as a group, including using Outlook’s “From” column or button and using the search bar in Gmail or Yahoo Mail to look up a sender’s email address.
The column also urged combining sender searches with date-range narrowing so users can remove older messages they may no longer need. In Outlook or Gmail, Chan said a date range can be set—for example, from 2010 to 2017—to clear out older utility bills and other messages that may have been accumulating for years.
For newsletters and mailing lists, the AP said Chan pointed to a keyword-based shortcut. Searching for “unsubscribe,” the column said, can identify messages that contain that term, which “wouldn’t normally be used in emails written by humans,” making it easier to delete newsletters in bulk.
The AP also included a “carbon copy” cleanup approach aimed at emails where the recipient is copied but not directly addressed. Chan said copying everyone on a chain can be polite or convenient depending on the topic, but it can also be annoying when messages are irrelevant. For Outlook, the column described using “Rules” to create a rule with advanced options that checks “where my name is in the cc box,” then either moving the message to a folder or permanently deleting it. For Gmail, it said users can use search with cc: followed by their email address.
Finally, the column described a last resort for people who still face a large backlog after trying the other tactics. It called this the “Nuclear Option,” in which the user deletes everything, describing the upside as a “blank slate” without ongoing mental anxiety about messages, while also flagging the drawback that it could lead to losing information that might still be important or precious.