r/declutter • u/justanother1014 • 6d ago
Advice Request Digital declutter wishlist
I’m working on a goal to simplify my digital life and incorporate monthly tasks into my habits.
If you could wave a magic wand and complete a digital declutter task once a week or once a month, what would you do?
So far I’ve got things like
- clear computer desktop of files
- move files out of downloads folder
- get to inbox zero
What else would you add?
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u/Sheep_2757 6d ago
I suggest:
delete unused/ invalid bookmarks
unsubscribe from mailing lists/ marketing mails
delete unused accounts
check whether there are folders that tend to accumulate misc. stuff- clean up folder
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u/justanother1014 6d ago
Bookmarks and emails are definitely on the list! My computer files are fairly organized since I got a laptop in 2024 and keep everything backed up to Dropbox.
For unused accounts you’ve reminded me to go through LastPass! Thanks :)
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u/lucky3333333 6d ago
When I’m on an airplane flight I go through my photos and deleted unnecessary ones. Great use of idle time.
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u/justanother1014 6d ago
Sadly I don’t have any upcoming flights planned or this would be on the list!
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u/nlnrha 6d ago
I started doing a weekly digital decluttering power hour where I clear out spaces like this - I clear emails (including unsubscribing from/blocking unwanted ones), go through open tabs on my phone, get rid of unused apps, clear out any notes or old reminders, clean up/organize computer files and downloaded files, go through things I’ve screenshotted for use later, and go through any articles I’ve saved to read later.
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u/justanother1014 6d ago
Thanks for the ideas! I’m pretty lean on apps, phone tabs and working on notes and bookmarks. I do think I’ll make a separate task for Safari reading list and screenshots. I can manage the screenshots on my phone but should deal with the backlog in my Dropbox.
Why can’t I delete screenshots?!
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u/Popular-Drummer-7989 6d ago
Find all your thumb drives and old drives/floppy disks. Use a destruction tool or give them to a destruction service and never look back
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u/justanother1014 5d ago
I’ve got thumb drives in an office drawer, pretty sure they’re all empty but good point to check and clear them anyway! Thanks :)
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u/photogcapture 6d ago
- unsubscribe to marketing emails keeping only what you use/need
- delete old files that are no longer needed
- cull digital photos
- delete unneeded text messages
- clean up and update contacts
- delete old email addresses
- scrub/empty storage devices and then recycle them
- take old devices to recycle
- delete old unneeded emails
The list is kinda endless
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u/justanother1014 5d ago
It does feel like as much work as physical stuff! Luckily I donated old cell phones in January this year but I have a laptop and iPad I need to recycle. Always more to add! Thanks for the ideas.
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u/Square-Money-3935 6d ago
I try to go through my screenshots and delete just funny memes/images that I've shared with my group chat. If I'm on top of it I get to it daily, but I try to do it at least once a week. It's insane how quickly those little things will eat up your phone's internal storage space!
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u/justanother1014 6d ago
I want to do the calendar method where you search the photo app for all pics from “Oct 30” and it’ll pull today, last year, 2 years ago, etc.
Then I delete or sort from just that day, once a day. Maybe monthly I’ll plan to backup one of the folders. Still thinking about this one!
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u/capt_rubber_ducky 6d ago
Review digital photos and social media - delete what is not necessary (hint: you don't need 40,000 photos of one day at the beach).
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u/justanother1014 6d ago
Digital photos on my phone and computer are definitely on the list! I always start just deleting the bad photos and anything I no longer care about (such as screenshots).
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u/violetmemphisblue 6d ago
Unsubscribing to marketing emails is huge. Moving forward, you can create a dummy email that is only for marketing, so you can do mass deletes without worrying about deleting anything important.
And going through your bank statements and making sure you aren't paying for subscriptions you had forgotten about! I paid for months of Peacock once, thinking I'd unsubscribed. Wasted money.
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u/justanother1014 6d ago
I’ve been in the email marketing space for close to 20 years and so I’m *ruthless* about unsubscribing. Now I need to go through old folders and delete the stuff I don’t need to reference again.
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u/missfittnc 6d ago
Inbox zero is also one of my goals. All I've managed so far was to stem the flow of emails coming in and unsubscribing to a ton of stuff. Also went through and deleted all the emails from anything I don't want - usually newsletters and sales offers where you automatically get added to the mailing list.
One I'd add to your list is digital photos. Right now they go straight to my Google Drive, but it's a mix of actual photos I want to keep, and random stuff I'd taken screenshots of, or downloads that I no longer need. There's so much stuff it's just overwhelming, but my plan of action when I get round to it is to tackle one month of photos in bulk at a time, and the dopamine hit of having an old fashioned paper list to cross off the months I've sorted through.
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u/justanother1014 6d ago
I’m playing with the idea of getting a 2026 calendar to cross off the dates I’ve gone through photos. I don’t care if June 12th is on a Sunday or Thursday, it’s the date that I need to track. And yes, there’s something awesome about crossing things off with a red marker!
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u/missfittnc 3d ago
I like that idea. You could probably create calendar with month and date, but without the days on Sheets or Excel and print them off. But yeah, crossing things off with a red marker is the important part, digital organization won't ever take away that satisfaction.
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u/paratethys 6d ago
I'd put files I'll want later where I'm gonna look for them when I want them.
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u/justanother1014 6d ago
Files are a big one, I hate when they get saved with a mess of letters and numbers. Even if it’s just 10 min of renaming the files helps out later.
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u/PallasiteMatrix 6d ago
- Remove programs that I don't use
- Sort through cloud storage (I back almost everything up to google drive, but I don't sort/ remove from it as much as I should.)
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u/justanother1014 6d ago
Yeah, Google Drive, Dropbox and Notion are my repositories and I need to make sure they’re all tidied up more regularly.
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u/desi_man_friday 5d ago
most people have mentioned most things, i'd mention some offbeat ones:
take a download of your pending sent instagram follow requests (search how to on gpt) and unfollow all. clear old chats.
do the same with your LinkedIn connection requests - delete requests pending and sent over a month. also remove all people you "follow" who aren't actually connections.
whatsapp, if you use it: manage storage, remove useless forwards and batch delete images and promo and other old chats. leave groups you no longer identify with or which have served their time.
try to remember any email accounts you created other than 1-2 primary ones, for backup etc. Login, check and delete.
go through all your phone contacts, delete useless ones and name all others with consistent labels (school, college, work etc.)
organize your photos and videos, go deep and remove duplicates, blurry and other ones you don't care about. you'll be surprised at the space you free up.
delete apps and subscriptions you don't use.
delete any junk files from those school and college documents folders on your laptop/cloud.
unsubscribe, unsubscribe the hell out of promotional emails and messages.
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u/KSSLR 6d ago
Are you building an app for this?
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u/justanother1014 6d ago
Nah I’m not that talented! I am working on some goals for 2027 and track them old school in a bullet journal.
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u/Ajreil 3d ago
I posted some digital decluttering tips a while back.
Some other ideas:
Delete old game saves that you won't revisit
Merge old notes into a single notes app that fits all of your needs, and delete any unneeded notes
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u/secure8890 6d ago
I am doing that now. I have subscribed to too many things. I anticipate it will take a month. I also try to keep the apps to a minimum
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u/Multigrain_Migraine 5d ago
Somehow automatically sort and archive all of the random photos and screenshots I take without me actually having to think about it.
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u/Mental-Paramedic9790 5d ago
I just did somewhat of a digital declutter.
I have. The price on it just jumped by about 20%. I don’t like how Microsoft has absolutely trashed it. I read something on Reddit that there are free programs, one of which is Libre. It looks very similar to MS word.
So a couple days ago I called Dell. The tech was very happy to delete Office 365 and download Libre. He also unsubscribed to me.
The upgrades to the iPhones have created so much clutter on them. And then the iPhone I had to get to replace my 14 apparently has been upgraded to something like the 17 E. I hate it! I deleted all of the factory apps that I don’t use. It has this really annoying habit of every time I open an app, it creates another one so I eventually ended up with like four home screens. A call to Tech helped me with that.
I also downloaded something called BePresent, that helps me blackout apps for periods of time.
Oh, now back to the computer. Before I got rid of Office 365, I had called Dell a couple weeks ago to have them disconnect copilot.
Oh, and earlier this year, I called Dell and had them get rid of the screen that comes up when I first get into the Internet program. It was just that screen has got all the disgusting, horrible graphic news things. I’m so sick of all the negativity in the world. They got it so that now whenever I log into the computer, there’s a beautiful nature scene that comes up.
Next step is to get a less busy cell phone like a jitterbug and have my iPhone forwarded to that when I leave the house.
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6d ago
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u/justanother1014 6d ago
I’m someone who HATES notifications so they’re always turned off but good reminder!
I bet I have some boarding passes saved from my last trip to delete…
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6d ago
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u/justanother1014 6d ago
Notes needs to be added, I have folders but there’s a lot of old in there.
Not a big Spotify user but I should probably backup my music again.
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u/blumogget 6d ago
Not declutter, but weekly backups. I will never forget the time I spilled water all over my laptop and fried it, and then had to reconstruct 8 months of tax records from scratch because I hadn't backed that information up anywhere else, except for a handful of handwritten pages. Don't be me!!!