According to Google, Gmail already automatically blocks 99.9% of spam, phishing, and malware. But even after all that automatic filtering, your inbox can still feel overwhelming. That’s because the problem is not just spam. It’s the flood of legitimate emails you technically agreed to receive, like those product updates, marketing campaigns, weekly newsletters, and more.
This is a problem that all of us have, and to help deal with it, Gmail has launched a new feature called “Manage Subscriptions.” This lets you quickly unsubscribe from emails from the senders you no longer care about. It’s a small change, but one that can make a big difference in how your inbox feels every single day.
Gmail’s “Manage Subscriptions” feature solves a problem we all have
Your inbox doesn’t have to feel overwhelming
No matter what you do, your email inbox is likely to feel like a mess over time. A promo email here, a discount code there, a newsletter you swore you’d read every week but never opened once. And the problem is not just clutter. It’s decision fatigue. Even if you don’t read these emails, you’re still forced to scan past them every time you open Gmail.
Gmail’s new “Manage Subscriptions” feature aims to solve this exact problem. It brings all your active subscriptions in one place. You can see who emails you the most and how often they show up. From there, you can quickly unsubscribe from the ones you no longer care about with a couple of clicks.
It’s a simple idea, but it matters because most of us are not overwhelmed by bad email. We’re overwhelmed by too many “okay” emails. Gmail’s Manage Subscriptions feature doesn’t magically fix your inbox, but it does reduce the chaos. And sometimes, a little less chaos is exactly what your brain needs.
Using the Manage Subscriptions feature is easy
A few taps is all it takes
The best thing about Gmail’s Manage Subscriptions feature is how simple it is to use. All you have to do is tap the menu icon in the top left corner of the Gmail app and scroll down to find Manage subscriptions. If it doesn’t show up, make sure you’ve updated the Gmail app.
In this menu, you’ll see a list of senders sorted by frequency, so those who are clogging up your inbox will appear at the top. It won’t show the exact number of emails from each sender, but you’ll see a rough estimate like “20+ emails recently,” “10-20 emails recently,” or “10 or less emails recently.”
Tap any sender, and you will see all the emails they’ve sent you. This is useful because not all of your subscriptions may be useless. Finally, to stop receiving emails from a specific sender, tap the unsubscribe button next to it and select Unsubscribe to confirm. You can repeat this for all the senders you don’t want.
If you’re using Gmail on your PC, you can do the same by heading to the Manage Subscriptions tab in the left pane. One thing to keep in mind is that it can actually take a few days before these senders stop sending messages.
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It’s not perfect, but it’s a start
Helpful, even with its limits
As good as Gmail’s Manage Subscriptions feature is, it’s not a magic fix for inbox chaos. In fact, Gmail has long required bulk senders to include a one-click unsubscribe option, and you probably may have used it before.
Sure, the new Manage Subscriptions tab makes the whole process even easier, but it doesn’t do anything advanced like automatically deleting subscription emails after a few days. And since this feature still requires manual intervention, you’ll likely have to revisit the tab every few weeks to keep unwanted senders in check. That said, it’s still a useful starting point for cleaning up your inbox.
There are better ways to manage your inbox
Simply unsubscribing may not be enough
Even after using Gmail’s new Manage Subscriptions feature, you’ll still likely end up with an inbox overload. If you really want to clean it up in a way that only shows what matters, Gmail filters are your best bet. They let you automatically label, archive, or delete emails based on who they are from or what they contain.
For instance, you can create a filter that detects all emails containing a particular word like “investment” and moves them to a specific folder. This way, they can skip your inbox entirely. You can also create a filter that marks specific emails as read, like those notifications from project management tools, so they don’t distract you every time they come in.
Another useful trick is setting up filters to delete unwanted emails after a few weeks, so your inbox never quietly fills up again over time. These are just a few examples, but you can do so much more with Gmail filters.
Your inbox is probably never going to be perfect, but Gmail’s Manage Subscriptions feature does improve things. Besides that, you can always rely on useful Gmail add-ons to manage your inbox better.