A clean inbox is one where everything left needs you: a question, a deadline, a note from someone you know. Getting there once is an afternoon’s work. Staying there is the hard part, because new mail rebuilds the pile every day. Sortmail does the staying for you. It files receipts, newsletters and notifications the moment they land, from senders you have never heard from as well as the ones you know.
Why clean inboxes fill up again
A cluttered inbox is two problems. There is the backlog, thousands of messages you will never act on, and there is the flow, the new mail that rebuilt the backlog last time you cleared it. Clearing only the backlog gets you a good screenshot and a full inbox again within a month. The fix for the flow is sorting every message as it arrives, which is what Sortmail does.
How Sortmail keeps it clean
Every new message lands in one of five categories: Actionable, Personal, Receipts, Newsletters and System. You can rename them or add your own, up to 8. The two that need you stay in the inbox. The rest are labelled and archived: out of the inbox, still under their label and in All Mail.
- It starts with your backlog. When you connect, Sortmail sorts your last month and shows you where each message would go and why, before you pay.
- It handles the flow. Every message that arrives after that is sorted as it lands, with no filters to keep up to date.
- It learns from you. Move a message and that correction becomes a rule for the sender straight away.
- It tells you what it did. A daily digest, at the hour you choose, lists what stayed in your inbox and what was filed and why.
- It never deletes anything. Every move can be undone, and message bodies are never stored.
Sorting new mail is unlimited on every plan, with no per-message credits and no monthly cap, as the fair use policy sets out.
The manual clean-up, if you want to start by hand
You can clear the backlog yourself in Gmail on a desktop browser. It pairs well with Sortmail: do this once, and let Sortmail keep it that way. Everything here archives rather than deletes, so every step can be undone.
Archive the backlog with one search
Anything in your inbox older than a month and still unanswered is very unlikely to need you today. Search for:
in:inbox older_than:30d- Tick the checkbox at the top left of the list to select the page.
- Click "Select all conversations that match this search".
- Click Archive and confirm the bulk action.
If 30 days feels too aggressive, start with older_than:1y and work down. Star anything you still need to answer and add -is:starred to the search so it stays put.
Unsubscribe from what you never read
Look at the last fortnight with in:inbox newer_than:14d and note the senders you never open. For most bulk mail, Gmail shows an Unsubscribe link beside the sender’s name at the top of the message. Use it. For app notifications, turn off the email in the app’s own settings. For a sender that ignores you, open a message, choose Block from the three-dot menu, and future mail from that address goes to Spam.
Reclaim storage if you need it
Gmail’s free storage is shared with Google Drive and Google Photos. If you are near the limit, sort by size rather than by age:
has:attachment larger:5M older_than:1yDelete what you do not need, then empty Bin. The storage figure does not drop until you do, or until the 30 days pass.
Where the manual method stops
The clean-up above works for the backlog. It does little for the flow, and every part of it is upkeep you do forever:
- Unsubscribing does not stop receipts, bank statements, shipping updates or security alerts. You want those, just not in front of you, so they keep landing in the inbox.
- Every purchase, sign-up and new app adds a sender. Unsubscribing is a clean-up you repeat, not a state you reach.
- Filters to file what you keep match only what you anticipated. A new shop’s first receipt, or a known sender with a new address or new subject wording, slips past them.
- Gmail’s inbox tabs are fixed categories you cannot rename or add to. There is no Receipts tab, no explanation of why a message landed where it did, and your moves do not teach them anything you can see.
- The daily routine depends on you. Reply, archive or star every message, every day, and notice every new sender. It is the first thing to slip in a busy week.
An afternoon, then no more afternoons
Sortmail takes the part that never ends. You keep the good habit of unsubscribing from mail you never want. Sortmail files everything else that is not for you right now, including mail from senders it has never seen, and puts the handful of messages from people who are waiting on you at the top.
- No filters to write or repair. Categories are ready on day one.
- No weekly re-clean. The inbox stays at what needs you.
- No lock-in. The labels are ordinary Gmail labels in your mailbox, and they stay if you ever disconnect.
- No risk to your mail. Sortmail never sends, drafts or deletes: our code calls no send, draft or trash endpoint, and a test fails the build if one is added.
See your inbox cleaned before you pay
Connect a mailbox and Sortmail sorts the last 30 days of your inbox (up to 1,000 messages) free, showing where each message would go and why. It is a preview rather than a trial: nothing is written to your mailbox, no labels and no archiving, until you choose a plan. You judge it on your own mail before you pay anything.
One plan, with every feature in it: $8.99 a month, $79 a year or $139 for 2 years at the founding price, limited to the first 500 subscribers and locked for as long as the subscription runs. A year costs less than 9 months of monthly, and 2 years less than 16. After the founding seats it is $12.99 a month, $99 a year or $169 for 2 years. Cancel in one click in Billing.