Spent 4 hours cleaning out my email inbox and still had 200 unread messages the next day.

I finally decided to tackle my inbox last Saturday. I got it down to zero unread after about 4 hours of unsubscribing and deleting. Woke up Sunday morning and somehow had 200 new messages from newsletters I swear I already unsubscribed from. Turns out some companies hide the unsubscribe link behind multiple pages or make you log in. Has anyone else found a trick to stop these ghost subscriptions from coming back?

3 comments

3 Comments

mary_patel5910d ago

My inbox has 47 messages from "QuickBooks" alone and I haven't used QuickBooks since 2019. I swear these companies have a secret handshake where they pass your email around after you unsubscribe. Unrolling.me helps a little but some newsletters change their sender name every week so they slip through again. I'm convinced inbox zero is a myth like Bigfoot or a politician keeping their promises.

spencer_chen610d ago

I read somewhere that the average person gets like 120 emails a day and most of them are junk from companies they barely remember signing up for. The sender name trick is so slimy, they count on you just hitting unsubscribe instead of reporting them as spam. Makes you wonder if inbox zero is actually possible or if we're all just chasing a unicorn.

christopher4029d ago

The trick that actually worked for me is using a temporary email service for signups. I keep one burner email for all the newsletters, store coupons, and loyalty programs. That way my main inbox only gets stuff from real people or important accounts. For the ones already flooding your inbox, Bulk Unsubscribe is pretty solid, it scans your inbox and finds newsletters you haven't opened in months. Another thing I do is filter any email with "unsubscribe" in the body straight to spam, so if they sneak through again they never hit my main view. Inbox zero is doable but you gotta be ruthless about blocking entire domains, not just hitting unsubscribe.

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