I’ve been using email since at least 1994, and I’ve managed it on Rocketmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail, Outlook, and various email apps over that time. I finally made the jump from free services to a paid service a few years ago, and I’ve been happily settled into Fastmail ever since and love it.

Whichever email service you use, though, the following tips will help you clean out the whole last year of email and keep it in check going forward. Square away a couple of hours to really dig into this task, and you’ll come out feeling like a warrior. No, really.

6 Steps to Clear Out an Entire Year of Emails From Your Inbox

ONE. Collect all your emails from the previous year into one folder to declutter your main inbox.

This annual folder is the one you will focus on clearing out. Cool Mom Tech has an easy Gmail how-to that will show you how to get it done.

Hot tip: You can select long lists of emails all at once with just two clicks. 1) Check the box to the left of the first email you want to include, and then 2) hold down the Shift key while you click the box next to last email you want to include. All the emails in between will be automatically selected!

TWO. Set up no more than 5 other folders to collect common types of email together.

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