Email is both a blessing and a curse. It helps us communicate and collaborate efficiently, but it also consumes a massive chunk of our time. According to one study, office workers spend over 5 hours per day reading and responding to emails.
With so much time lost to inbox management, it‘s no wonder productivity suffers. But what if you could get some of that time back by putting your inbox to work for you?
The answer lies in inbox automation.
In this comprehensive guide, we‘ll explore tools and techniques to help you automate many of the repetitive, time-wasting tasks that bog down your email efficiency.
Whether you want to auto-reply to frequently asked questions, automatically share your availability for meetings, keep promotional emails from distracting you, minimize unsolicited requests, or turn email task reminders into project management cards, this guide has you covered.
Let‘s dive in!
Why Automate Your Email Inbox?
Before jumping into the how-to details on setting up inbox automation workflows, let‘s look at a few key reasons why it pays to put your inbox to work for you:
1. Regain lost hours every week
By some estimates, office workers lose 4-6 weeks per year just to reading and responding to emails. Even if you only manage to automate a fraction of time-consuming inbox tasks, those small efficiencies add up to major time savings.
2. Reduce stress and stay focused
Having to context switch between critical work and repetitive email tasks burns mental energy and makes it hard to stay focused. Inbox automation lets you focus energy on high-impact priorities.
3. Provide quicker, more personalized service
With the help of automation tools, you can provide quick, tailored responses to common questions as well as instantly share availability for meetings. This delights customers and colleagues alike.
4. Keep your inbox clean and productive
Automated workflows help route non-critical emails out of your inbox, allowing you to focus only on high-priority tasks in your inbox instead of getting distracted by a sea of unread emails.
Now that the benefits are clear, let‘s look at setting up some inbox automation workflows using tools you likely already have access to.
How to Automate Reponses to Frequently Asked Questions
Answering the same questions via email over and over again is tedious for you and frustrating for customers awaiting your replies.
To provide quick, personalized service instead, you can use templates and keyboard shortcuts to auto-insert frequently asked answers into new emails and replies.
Here are three tools to help automate responses no matter what email platform you use:
Use TextExpander to Create Email Shortcuts
Available for Mac, Windows, Chrome, iPhone/iPad, and Android devices, TextExpander lets you create custom keyboard shortcuts that auto-expand into full paragraphs of text.
For example, I have a shortcut "contact" that expands into a full email signature whenever I type it.
Here‘s how to leverage TextExpander for auto-responding to common questions:
- Create a TextExpander account and install the app on your devices.
- For each common question/response, create a new snippet with the full text of your reply.
- Set an easy-to-remember abbreviation for each snippet.
- Type the snippet abbreviation when composing an email to auto-insert the full response.
With snippets on hand for all your common email questions, you‘ll provide fast and personalized replies every time.
TextExpander pricing starts at $3.33/month for individual use.
Use Outlook Quick Parts to Insert Email Templates
If you rely on Outlook for email, take advantage of the Quick Parts tool to create reusable email templates.
Follow these steps:
- Compose an email with the full text you want to reuse later.
- Highlight the entire text and select "Save Selection to Quick Parts" from the Insert tab.
- Give your new Quick Part a descriptive name.
- Insert it into any new email by selecting it from the Quick Parts menu.
This helps you respond rapidly while keeping replies personalized.
As a free built-in Outlook feature, Quick Parts makes email templating available to anyone with an Office 365 subscription.
Enable Gmail Templates for One-Click Responses
Rounding out the top email providers, Gmail also offers built-in support for email templates.
Here‘s how to put them to use:
- Go to Gmail Settings > Advanced and enable Templates.
- Compose a new email with the text you want to reuse later.
- Click the 3-dot menu in the compose window and select "Save draft as template".
- To insert any template while composing a new email, select it from the Templates menu.
Gmail templates provide frictionless responses without added software costs.
Between TextExpander, Quick Parts, and Gmail templates, you‘ve got flexible options for automating responses on mobile or desktop for top email platforms.
Scheduling calls and meetings requires endless back-and-forth emails sharing availability windows.
Rather than drain time trading calendar openings, consider these tools to instantly share free time slots for faster scheduling.
Use Calendly Scheduling Links
One of the most popular automated scheduling tools, Calendly eliminates planning emails by posting your availability online.
Follow these steps to put Calendly to work:
- Connect Calendly to your calendar(s).
- Configure meeting invitees, durations, buffer times and additional details.
- Grab a link to your personalized Calendly scheduling page.
- Share your link whenever someone requests time on your calendar.
Invitees pick an open slot that works for them and Calendly automatically confirms the meeting time and sends calendar invites to all participants.
Calendly offers a basic free plan with one event type and scheduling link as well as affordable paid tiers with more customization.
Embed Scheduling in Any Email with Mixmax
If real-time scheduling from a static web page feels overly public, Mixmax‘s email-based approach lets you share availability on a case-by-case basis.
With the Mixmax plugin installed in Gmail, just follow these steps whenever you receive a meeting request:
- Compose a reply email confirming you‘d love to meet.
- Click the calendar icon to launch scheduling.
- Select the dates/times you‘re available.
- Let Mixmax embed your selections right in the email.
Recipients pick an open slot, and Mixmax handles the calendar invites.
Mixmax plans start at $9 per month, but a 14-day free trial is available.
Take the Human Touch Further with x.ai
If you want scheduling to feel more natural, x.ai offers intelligent email-based meeting coordination through a human-emulating AI assistant named Amy.
Just CC [email protected] whenever you receive a meeting request, and Amy will handle all details over email:
- Confirming interest in a meeting
- Trading availability windows
- Scheduling a final time/date
- Sending calendar invites
With a human touch backed by automation, Amy reduces scheduling emails by up to 60% while confirming 4x more meetings.
x.ai pricing starts at $17/mo per user.
How to Remove Distracting Emails Automatically
Promotional and transactional emails clog inboxes and threaten productivity by interrupting focus.
Regain up to 30 minutes per day by automatically removing distracting emails using rules and filters available in every major email platform.
Create Gmail Filters to Skip the Inbox
Gmail‘s robust filtering system helps customize inbound email handling via easy automation workflows.
To filter any distracting email:
- Hover over the sender name or email subject line.
- Click the filter icon (down arrow or 3 dots).
- Choose to archive, label, or delete future matching emails.
Labels and archiving move emails out of the inbox while keeping them accessible. Delete filters offer more aggressive pruning for unwelcome senders.
Enable a filter any time you receive an unnecessary email, and Gmail will handle the rest automatically.
Gmail filters are free to enable and customize as needed.
Set Up Rules in Outlook and Outlook.com
Microsoft Outlook on the desktop and web mail both support email automation through rules.
Creating a rule is simple:
- Right-click any email matching what you want to filter.
- Hover over Rules and select "Create Rule".
- Choose conditions like sender, words in subject line, etc.
- Pick an action like Delete, Move to Folder, Categorize, and more.
As soon as your first rule activates, Outlook takes care of applying those conditions/actions to any future matching emails automatically.
Rules help cut down noise without losing access to filtered messages. And as a built-in feature, rules won‘t cost you a penny.
Automate Mail Handling on Mac with Rules
Apple Mail for Mac offers a Rules feature similar to Outlook for desktop automation.
Here‘s how to enable it:
- Go to Mail > Preferences > Rules
- Click Add Rule and give it a name
- Define match conditions like sender, subject keywords, etc.
- Pick an action like moving to a folder or deleting
With rules enabled, Apple Mail will process distracting emails the way you want without ongoing input.
Like Outlook and Gmail, Mail rules auto-clean your inbox free of charge.
Regain Focus with Automatic Email Handling
Don‘t let distracting emails interrupt your workflow.
Leverage built-in automation features from email providers to remove unnecessary messages with no added costs.
Promotional emails and notifications quickly move out of sight and out of mind, empowering you to maintain focus on high-value priorities.
How to Limit Time Spent on Unsolicited Requests
Industry influencers, company executives, and customer service teams often deal with a flood of unsolicited emails requesting advice, interviews, promotions, and other favors.
While some queries warrant genuine attention, spending unpaid time replying to every random demand burns mental energy and cripples productivity.
Rather than let your time be dictated by strangers, you can limit unsolicited requests using Earn.com‘s clever email paywall automation.
Earn lets you charge people to email you — yes, you can make them pay for every reply!
While charging to access your inbox may seem unconventional, it‘s extremely effective at reducing low-quality inquiries.
Here‘s how to put it into practice:
- Sign up for a free Earn.com account
- Set your desired per message rates (for example, $1, $5, or $20 to reply)
- Install the Gmail extension to auto-bounce requests from unfamiliar senders to your Earn.com paywall
- If desired, auto-donate earnings to charity
Once enabled, anyone not in your contacts list will trigger an automated reply explaining that you charge for responses, with payment details and a link to contact you on Earn.com‘s platform.
You can also manually bounce requests one-off by inserting your paywall link into any auto-reply template.
By adding a monetary cost, you filter out trivial requests not worth your time and generate income from serious inquiries you opt to respond to. Talk about effective automation!
Earn provides basic accounts and inbound message management free of charge while allowing you to set custom rates for paid replies.
While adding a paywall may seem unconventional, it can buy back dozens of hours each month otherwise sacrificed to unsolicited demands on your time and attention. The efficiency gains are well worth testing for anyone dealing with email overload.
How to Move Important Tasks Out of Your Inbox
Emails often contain reminders and requests related to important projects and tasks. But letting assignments pile up inside your crowded inbox makes it impossible to prioritize properly.
The fix? Automate a workflow to move project tasks instantly into a dedicated task management app like Asana, Trello, Jira, Todoist and more.
This allows you to handle assignments in a centralized system purpose-built for task tracking rather than an overflowing inbox.
Zapier makes this type of cross-platform automation easy and intuitive with 300+ pre-built workflows connecting email to popular task apps.
For example, this Zap will automatically create new Trello cards for emails you label as "To-Do" in Gmail:
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The same approach works to create task tickets in Jira, Asana, Basecamp, and most other dedicated work tools directly from flagged emails.
Zapier pricing starts at free for basic usage.
By auto-transferring inbox reminders into your task system, you‘ll finally be able to prioritize and track assignments from one centralized dashboard instead of an fragmented inbox view.
Recap: Inbox Automation Strategies for Every Email Task
Email is unavoidable in modern business, which means an overflowing inbox doesn‘t have to be.
Leverage the automation tools and workflows outlined in this guide to eliminate repetitive manual email handling at every stage:
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Auto-reply to common questions with TextExpander, Outlook Quick Parts, and Gmail Templates
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Instantly share availability using Calendly scheduling links, Mixmax embeddable slots, or x.ai‘s intelligent assistant
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Keep promotional emails away with Gmail filters, Outlook rules for desktop and web, or Apple Mail rules
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Limit unsolicited requests by adding an Earn.com paywall requiring payment for replies
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Centralize tasks and requests by auto-creating project tickets based on flagged emails using Zapier
Pick one or several strategies to put into practice today based on the busywork emails wasting the most time in your working life at the moment.
As the small efficiencies accumulate, you‘ll transform email from demand on your time into a system working for you — allowing you to focus energy on high-impact priorities.
Now put that inbox to work!
