How To Properly Pause Your Email Inbox at Work

It's common to wonder what to do with your emails when you're gone from your desk—and how to make sure you aren't greeted with a gloomy avalanche of messages that require answering to—whether you're wrapping up work for the holidays or heading off on a well-earned vacation (or both). We've got a few tricks up our sleeves, and we'll show you how to use them in Gmail, Apple Mail, and Outlook on the web (if you're using another client, you should be able to find features comparable to the ones we're talking about). Before your break, spend a little time pausing your email; you'll be glad you did afterwards. If it makes sense for your field of business, it would be worthwhile to declare email bankruptcy in your out-of-office email as well and state that nothing written during your absence will be read. Anyone who actually read your out-of-office message will know they need to get in touch when you return, allowing you to start over from scratch. [caption id="attachment_83560" align="alignright" width="1200"] Screenshot: Gmail[/caption] By selecting the cog icon (top right), See all options, General, and Out-of-Office Auto Reply in Gmail on the web, you can configure an out-of-office message. To access Apple Mail, sign in to the iCloud website, then click the gear icon (top left), followed by Preferences and Auto-Reply. Click the cog symbol in the top right corner of Outlook on the web, then select View all Outlook settings, Email, and Automatic responses. While you're really at your desk, you may already be using email rules and filters to manage your inbox, but they may also be very helpful when you're not there. You can minimise the amount of unread emails waiting for you when your break is complete by marking incoming emails as read and archiving them as necessary. [caption id="attachment_83561" align="alignright" width="1200"] Screenshot: Gmail[/caption] Your employment, how you use email, and a number of other things will all influence how you should go about doing this. Perhaps you could ensure that while you're away, all internal emails from your company are marked as read and archived. Alternatively, you might apply a filter to newsletters that are important to read when you're in the office but that you can skip when you're not. Also, Read: Here Is The Way To Retrieve Old Deleted Emails From Outlook Consider the message groups that you won't need to catch up on or those you may want to make sure you don't miss (in which case you can star them rather than marking them as read and archiving them). In conclusion, by allowing your email client to manage messages on your behalf, you should find it simpler to get back into the swing of things when you return. Click the cog icon (top right) and choose See all settings, followed by Filters and blacklisted addresses and Create a new filter to begin configuring filters in Gmail on the web. Click Mail, Settings, Rules, then Add Rule in Apple Mail on macOS. You must select View all Outlook settings, Email, and Rules by selecting the cog icon in the top right corner of Outlook on the web.