🏄🏼‍♂️ Ride the newsletter wave

📨 Inbox rescue: Apps and tips for newsletter overload

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I’m sinking in newsletters. I’m not even sure how many I’ve subscribed to, but I know it doesn’t take long for my inbox to get swamped. Time for some organisation.

With newsletters riding the crest of a wave, there’s a fleet of newly-launched reader apps and email hacks coming to the rescue.

Slick Inbox is a free app for iOS, with an ‘early access’ Android version, and a good choice for minimalist design and ease of use. Slick provides a unique email address (username@slickinbox.com) you use to subscribe to newsletters from within the app or elsewhere. Newsletters never touch your email inbox.

There’s a modest directory of newsletters within the app - adequate for getting the hang of it - plus search bar that adds a useful Google Search option. As your newsletter subscriptions build, they can be organised easily into ‘bundles’ of topics.

I like the simple on/off switch to pause subscriptions and you can decide how many past issues you’d like to see in the app (by default, there is no limit).

Stoop takes a similar tack in using a unique address to subscribe to newsletters (username@stoopinbox.com). Issues are archived after ten issues and deleted after 60 days, unless you upgrade for $10 a year, which also unlocks the folder organisation.

The directory in Stoop is more expansive than Slick’s, but there’s no search. One interesting feature is the ability to subscribe to YouTube channels from within the app.

Other apps I’ve tried include Mux, which uses the unique address system but didn’t blow Slick out of the water for me. Browser-based Supscrib is interesting but I can do without another dashboard. Then there’s Matter: an innovative app built around writers rather than publishers that includes newsletters in its ‘everything you want to read into one beautiful place’ promise.

Having newsletters appear in an app like Slick rather than my inbox makes sense. On the other hand, it’s another app to open daily, along with Refind, Inoreader (for RSS feeds and alerts) Flipboard and Google News.

By the way, yes, you can add newsletters to an RSS reader. Feedly already includes this in its Pro plan. And if you can’t find the RSS feed, Kill the Newsletter will create one for you.

We all go through our emails regularly, so what’s wrong with having newsletters appear in the place they were designed for, providing a ray of sunshine on otherwise overcast waters?

In Apple Mail, the simple solution is to create a new mailbox (Mail > New Mailbox) called, for example, Newsletters. Then create a Rule that will filter incoming emails to that folder. To create a Rule, go to Mail > Preferences and tap Rule to the far right of the menu.

Tap the Add Rule button and give your Rule a name, such as Newsletters. Now to add a ‘condition’.

One option is to add the email address of each incoming newsletter like this: Under ‘If any of the following conditions are met’ use the default From and Contains, then add the address to the right. Tap the + button to add more addresses.

A simpler and quicker method is to filter messages that contain words common to email newsletters - like those in the unsubscribe message at the bottom.

Follow the above steps but select Message Content in the Condition drop-down, followed by Includes. In the text box add: Unsubscribe. Then tap + to add additional conditions with Un-subscribe and Subscription (not case sensitive).

Under ‘Perform the following actions’, choose ‘Move message’ to mailbox ‘Newsletters’ (or whatever you called the mailbox). Click OK and your newsletters should now appear in a separate folder.

It’s the same approach with Gmail. Start by expanding the Gmail sidebar, scroll down and click the ‘Create new label’ link. Add a title, such as Newsletters, and click Create.

Now add your filter. Tap the search option button to the right of Gmail’s search bar and in the ‘Has the words’ field add this string: Unsubscribe OR Un-subscribe OR Subscription.

Click ‘Create filter’ and check the box next to ‘Skip the inbox’. Finally click the box next to ‘Apply the label’ and choose the label you created in the first step. Tap the Create Filter button, and you’re done! Here’s a guide to Gmail filters.

Check out these directories: InboxReads, Thanks for Subscribing, Find Newsletters and Newsletters. If you have an account, Substack has a reader where you can search for newsletters. ‘Discover’ is a portal of over 500 curated Revue newsletters.

🌍 I’ve been fortunate to work with amazing creatives and causes around the world as a trainer and educator. I get lots of ‘how do I …’ questions, so I started this newsletter to share the answers.

If you enjoy it, please share it! And if you have a question, suggestion or useful stuff you’d like to share, get in touch: dan@danmason.co.uk 🔗 bio.link/masondan

⭐️ Main image: Sea: Pexels/Pixabay. Helicopter: Jan-Rune Smenes Reite/Pexels