Flushing out an Overflowing Gmail Inbox with Targeted Gmail Searches

If you're like me, you may have accumulated dozens of subscriptions that arrive in your inbox daily. Even though it may not seem like much, over months or years, these unread emails can become overwhelming and hard to delete in bulk unless you can find a way to filter them with a search.

Update 4/6/25:

in:inbox is:unread has:nouserlabels 

Finds everything that is unread and has no user labels. Helpful for collecting and deleting unread, unorganized emails in bulk.

Update 5/4/20:

Two new and improved searches to clear out old messages in Gmail

in:inbox is:unread has:nouserlabels NOT label:important NOT is:starred
(The new key search operator (has:nouserlabels) will hide all messages from the search that have a user assigned label.  I almost always apply either an important label or a personal label to messages that I need to save for future use.)

in:inbox is:read has:nouserlabels NOT label:important NOT is:starred
This will show read messages that still do not have personal labels applied.  These messages are likely ones that were opened, read, and then never deleted.

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Here is the Gmail search phrase I use to find unimportant messages, not from friends, and delete them (usually 99 or 100 at a time).

NOT label:important label:unread in:inbox NOT label:starred

You may want to make a few modifications yourself in case you occasionally received messages not marked as important that include attachments (ie: website backups, quarterly reports, etc).

Hide messages from the search results that have attachments:
NOT has:attachment

NOT from:__________

Printable Wall Calendars

Many professionals use year (or quarter at a glance) to see when bookings are happening.  This allows them to give accurate information about availability without having to rely on any devices.

Wedding industry professionals (and consultants) can use a 3-month calendar that can be put on a wall or cork board to see all bookings for the year.

CalendarLabs.con has a great selection of monthly and 3-month calendars that can be customized and printed free.

A few of the templates I may use for my photography and videography booking:

2016 calendar with two months in a page template.  This would be great for summer bookings, because June and July could be printed on one page and August and September could be printed on another.

2016 calendar with three months in a page template.  Also good for seasonal bookings, especially if it can be customized to show specific months and not just the quarterly months.  (It's a Word document format that can also be downloaded as a PDF.)