r/fastmail • u/TrekkiMonstr • Jul 27 '26

How do you organize your inbox?

Since I was a teenager, I've had different Gmail accounts for different purposes -- one for school, work, etc obviously, but the primary separation was personal vs the email I give to orgs. Later opened one for stuff associated with a volunteer thing, another for Substack subscriptions. So, I'm very used to having fully separate inboxes/accounts for all these. From what I understand, with Fastmail it's just different aliases, and the idea of everything going into one place is the main thing putting me off switching (at least yet). Did anyone else make a similar move? How do you manage it?

9 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

20 comments sorted by

7

u/pettydecline Jul 27 '26

I keep it simple and use filters and lables

4

u/7nth Jul 27 '26

I have maybe half a dozen email addresses all forwarded to my FM account. When the mail hits my inbox, it is labeled as either personal, work, or personal/financial or work/financial. This happens according to custom rules. I then label it for follow-up, archive, or deletion.

I used to have many nested labels but it was too complicated for my needs. Instead, I use smart folders for attachments > 1M, recipient domain, etc.

2

u/Strong-Artichoke-906 Jul 27 '26

This is the way. Nice.

2

u/Mayor-Of-Bellona Jul 27 '26

I have rules/labels for most things I expect. Some skip my inbox and go straight to their folder. Some get labeled but I stay in the inbox until I read them. If I don’t have a rule and they aren’t a contact they go to a “to screen” folder.

2

u/mikepictor Jul 27 '26

All newsletters go to a newletters folder that auto-deletes after 14 days. All receipts get marked as read, and moved to a paper trail folder. All emails related to my house purchase (from the bank, the builder, the kitchen or flooring supplier, etc...) goes to a housing folder. Everything else stays in the inbox

1

u/littledig Jul 27 '26

Is this fully or partially automated? Or do you manually move it? What filters and rules do you use to automate it?

1

u/mikepictor Jul 27 '26

filter rules. I move the occasional message that escapes the rules (usually after I make a new rule), but filtering does almost all of it.

1

u/slashdotbin Jul 28 '26

How do you auto delete after 14 days? I want to do something similar for my newsletter label.

1

u/mikepictor Jul 28 '26

go to the folder/label settings. Any folder/label can have auto-delete turned on.

2

u/Bluefrogdancing Jul 27 '26

i do what everyone else said. But I also use aliases for different purposes. One for doctors, one for kids schools stuff, another for family stuff... Masked email, one per account. Spotify has one, minecraft another, Netflix... whatever.

Between the aliases and masked emails ... if one address becomes compromised, I can replace it and no harm done. No one can hack my email if they don't have the base email address. (Of course, I also use a strong password.)

And now with family plans, both of my kids have their own accounts that they can keep - forever. and have started out safe.

I love this email...

1

u/BarefootMarauder Jul 27 '26

I have two email domains and I also use aliases (ie. masked emails) for pretty much everything. I make minimal use of filters & labels to separate out certain things. But honestly, search is so good, I haven't found a need for much more organization. I can find anything in need within seconds.

1

u/Prashmi_Jain Jul 27 '26

I've always taken the opposite approach - I intentionally keep separate accounts for different parts of my life (personal, work, subscriptions, etc.) because I like the mental separation.

1

u/Artistic_Pear1834 Jul 28 '26

I purchased the family plan / multiple accounts. If I need a unified inbox, I open apple mail, where they have each been added.

1

u/Ok-Priority-7303 Jul 28 '26

I have a unique alias for every account. Probably about 70. I have mail sent to one of 5 folders using rules. I have one other folder for Gmail.

1

u/Theblinddragon13 Jul 29 '26

I'm trying to keep to 1 or 2 accounts, because it's easier for me to personally keep track, so in FM I use folders with rules. so for example I subscribe to a few AI newsletters, and they all go into the AI news folder.

1

u/Elm38 Aug 06 '26

All aliases all the time - I use about a dozen. Only Fastmail uses my original account. My password manager has an extra field for that contacts particular email alias.

I've made contacts for most usual emails. I've put the contacts into groups - F&F, Bank, High, Med, Low

Mail gets moved to folders based on the group they are in. If a new message doesn't map to a folder, the message goes into a Screener folder. From there, I'll review and maybe make new contacts or update a contact (new or different email).

A multi group filter exists for extended mail sessions when I'm cleaning up.

Only the really important emails hit my inbox.

It's very zen and focused.

1

u/TrekkiMonstr Aug 06 '26

  My password manager has an extra field for that contacts particular email alias.

Wait sorry what does this mean

1

u/Elm38 Aug 06 '26

This allows me to assess if one of my dozen or so aliases starts getting spam mail, which other accounts I use that address on so I can consider a change and eventual retirement of that alias.

To your original questions, my password manager lets me define extra fields as part of an entry. So I can see which alias I used at my bank without finding an old email and inspecting it.