What’s Your Apptitude? Declutter your inbox with Unroll.Me
By Amanda Merriman
I aspire to limit clutter in all aspects of my life. Email is one area that lags behind in that department though. It got to the point where it seemed like gremlins were reproducing uncontrollably in my inbox. I would inwardly groan every time I opened Outlook. I could have individually unsubscribed from all the unwanted emails, but the task seemed too time consuming. When I commiserated with a friend about this decidedly 21st-century problem, she suggested I check out Unroll.Me.
Unroll.Me is a free email management app that works with iOS or Android devices. You can manage multiple email accounts. Once you set up the app, it searches for your subscriptions using an algorithm. Quickly swipe left, right, or up to unsubscribe, keep, or rollup mail from your inbox. After you review your subscriptions, the app will show your stats. Rolling up your subscriptions means the app will organize these emails into a daily newsletter that shows up in a separate folder within your inbox. The newsletter sorts these rollups based on category and provides the information in a pleasing format. If you choose to delete a subscription, the app figures out the process for each after a 24-hour waiting period. The waiting period ensures you do not accidentally remove yourself from the mailing list. You can review and edit your subscription settings if needed. The result is pretty satisfying with a minimal amount of effort.
Since I downloaded the app a month ago, I have unsubscribed from 120 emails. I have 20 messages that go to my daily newsletter, which no longer clutter my general inbox. Despite the achievement of a manageable inbox, I should bring up the issue of privacy. As with most things on the internet, especially free ones, users must agree to a privacy policy. In this case, Unroll.Me is a part of Rakuten Slice. Rakuten Slice is a marketing company that anonymizes your transactional data and shares the information with its partners for product research. It is important to consider privacy whenever downloading an app. Unroll.Me does not have access to your login information if you have a Gmail, Outlook, or Yahoo account. The app has security measures for the other servers that do not have authentication services. Keeping this in mind, I have enjoyed the benefits of Unroll.Me and will continue using the app for the foreseeable future.
