17 Life-Changing Ways To Up Your Gmail Game

Inbox hero.

Alice Mongkongllite / BuzzFeed

1. Unsubscriber for Gmail (free, iOS) is the quickest way to unsubscribe from newsletters and mailing lists.

The app will scan your Gmail account for any email lists you may be signed up for. All you need to do is swipe left to unsubscribe and swipe right to stay subscribed. It's a super-quick and easy way to clean up your inbox!

If you don't have an iPhone, scroll down to "Websites and Skins" for a browser-friendly unsubscriber!

2. The best mobile app for Gmail is Outlook (free, iOS and Android).

No, it's not the Gmail app – it's Outlook, which has a slick new interface thanks to Microsoft's acquisition of Acompli.

With one swipe, you can archive, delete, or schedule an email to show up at a later time. With one tap, you can add an attachment from Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive. Outlook's killer feature, however, is that you can view your Google Calendar and Google Drive (or OneDrive or Box) files without ever leaving the app.

3. Mailburn (free, iOS) turns your Gmail threads into chats.

The app strips away quoted text and other distractions, so you can get stuff done.

4. Mailpilot ($20, Mac) is a beautiful desktop Gmail client that treats emails like tasks.

With Mail Pilot, instead of marking a message as "unread" to trick yourself into reading it later, you can set email reminders. The app isn't fixated on the number of unread emails. It focuses on the "completeness" of an email. When you've responded appropriately to a thread, you can change its status from Incomplete to Complete. You can also collect groups of related messages into lists.

There is also a companion iOS app ($10).

5. Gmail Offline (free) allows you to read, respond to, search, and archive mail without internet.

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The extension syncs your messages and actions while you're connected to the internet. When you lose your connection, open a new tab, and click Gmail Offline. Then... BAM! There are all of your emails.

6. Gmail Mail Checker displays your number of unread messages.

Glancing at your bookmarks bar is so much easier than opening a new tab. This Chrome extension displays the number of unread messages on the top right corner of your browser window.

If you have more than 100 unread messages, maybe DON'T DO THIS or mark everything as read before before you install this extension. You will be driven to insanity.

7. With Boomerang, you can schedule emails to be sent at a later time.

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Trick your co-workers into thinking you're up early on email! (JK, but actually.) This extension works on Firefox, Chrome, and Safari.

You can schedule 10 emails per month for free. After that, prices range from $5 (personal Gmail) to $15 (work Gmail).

8. Ugly Email checks if your email is being tracked.

The Chrome extension shows an "evil eye" next to Gmail emails from retailers or publications that are being tracked. It's free to download.

9. Send self-destructing email with Snapmail.

This Chrome extension allows you to send confidential information via an encrypted service that connects to Gmail. After it's opened, the message will be automatically deleted after 60 seconds.

10. The Gmail Menu extension for Safari gives you a shortcut for emailing links.

http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/games/adventuretime/index.html

If you email links often, consider getting this Safari extension, which adds a "Gmail" shortcut to the right-click (or control + click) menu on Mac. You can select "Gmail" on any page to open a new tab or window with an email already composed. The subject is the page title and the body is the URL.

11. Insert GIFs without ever leaving your email with Giphy for Gmail.

This Chrome extension adds a Giphy icon to your compose window so you can search, discover, and insert GIFs right in Gmail.

12. Human experts at eAngel can correct spelling and grammar in different languages.

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This Chrome extension can help you compose emails in languages you're not familiar with. There are English, Spanish, French, German, and Hebrew translators waiting in the wings to correct grammar and spelling errors. Once eAngel is installed, address your email to the intended recipient, ask eAngel to check your work, and within the hour, they'll send a proofread email for you.

Your first five emails (or first 500 words) are free. After that, pricing depends on how many corrections you need (starts at $5/month for 830 corrected characters).

13. Unroll.me is a free website that can combine all of your subscriptions into one email.

All you have to do is log in with your Gmail account. And for the subscriptions you don't want, you can unsubscribe with one click.

14. Use Slick Deals Price Tracker's email alerts in conjunction with a special Gmail label to easily keep tabs on price drops.

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15. Organize all of your email into lists with Sortd.

Sortd is a special skin that lives inside of Gmail. The app shows you several flexible lists that you can name whatever you want. You can drag and drop emails from your inbox to a Sortd list. If the email subject isn't helpful, just click on the text to rename it.

Once you're done sorting the important threads, you can hide your inbox and work on the most important conversations. And it's not limited to email — you can add regular tasks (like "buy milk after work") manually.

16. You'll finally be able to find your dream apartment or [insert thing here] with this Craiglist email hack.

Everytime a Craiglist listing is published with your exact specifications, you'll get an email so you can respond as soon as literally possible.

Here's how it works: Head to Craigslist.org, click on the appropriate section (eg. "apts/housing" or "bikes"), fill out the options on the left (see above), and click Search.

Then copy the new Craigslist URL for the search results, head here to activate the IFTTT recipe, and, when prompted, paste the URL into the field that reads The search URL you want to track. Good luck!

17. Back up all of your Gmail data with Google Takeout.

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This is Google's in-house tool for exporting all of your email, contacts, and calendar information. It's good practice to do this every once in a while — just in case your account gets hacked and you can't access your email. You can export all Gmail messages or just select labels.

Bonus extra! Sign up for Inbox by Gmail, which is a special version of Gmail that's now open to everyone.

It's a new version of Gmail (for those who want it) available on iOS and Android for free. It groups your email into different "bundles" like travel, promotions, updates, finance, and more — automatically.

Some new, handy features include default Undo Send and putting all of your travel information at your fingertips. It's free and available to everyone today!

NOW you're ready to take back control of your inbox. 👊📩

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Go get 'em!