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End Email Overload Once & For All
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by
Ludovic Armand
January 12, 2023
· Updated on
Are emails taking over your work life? You're not alone. We've all felt that our inbox never ended, stressed by notifications popping up every few seconds, and stuck to our desks. But don't worry, it doesn't have to be this way.
According to research by Gloria Marks, emails are a major cause of stress at work. It's no surprise when the average person checks their email 74 times a day while at work. That's more than 9 times per hour! No wonder we're not getting anything done.
But don't worry, we're here to help. While some of you might be tempted to delegate your emails to an assistant with tools like Gmail delegation, with some strategies and the right tool, you can turn that inbox from a source of stress into your productivity powerhouse.
In this article, we're going to show you how to take control of your emails, reduce the overload, and get back to doing what you do best. Let's get started!
Email overload, or email fatigue, is the feeling of being overwhelmed when you receive too many emails in a short period of time, making it hard to keep up with them all. It can lead to missed emails, missed deadlines, and an overall sense of being swamped.
And unfortunately, it is a familiar problem for many people.
Emails can be very stressful and make it hard to be productive if they're not managed properly.
There are a few common causes of email overload. But the most common is simply receiving too many emails from colleagues, clients, and unwanted outreach. Another cause is subscribing to too many newsletters or marketing emails, which can clutter up your inbox quickly.
The solution to overcome email overload is to implement email management best practices, like the inbox zero method.
It is important to notice when you are getting too many emails and do something about it, as it can hurt your work.
There is no official answer the number of emails that is considered "too many". Someone manageable inbox may be overwhelming chaos for you.
But how do you know when you've reached the tipping point of too many emails?
A good rule of thumb is that you have too many emails when they start to negatively impact you. You may feel like you can't keep up with your emails, be stressed out, miss important opportunities or deadlines, or have trouble concentrating on other tasks.
But it's not just the sheer number of emails you receive, it’s also about how you manage them. Even if you don't receive a lot of emails, if you're not managing them effectively, it can still lead to email overload.
With all of that in mind, a good way to determine how many emails are too much for you is by tracking how much time you spend on email each day. If you're spending too much time on emails and it's stopping you from doing your job, you probably have too many emails for your current workload.
An inbox full of email can be more than just a nuisance. It can affect your work and your mental health. And unfortunately, we usually don't realize that our email is taking up too much of our day until it's too late.
Here are some of the ways it can affect your productivity, cause you stress, and cause problems at work.
When your inbox is constantly overflowing, it can be hard to stay focused and get things done. Constant notifications and interruptions can make it hard to keep your focus, resulting in a decrease in your overall productivity.
Constantly feeling like you’re behind and that you need to check and respond to emails can be overwhelming. It’s no surprise that many studies concluded that it increases your stress and chances of burnout which can be harmful to both your physical and mental health.
Having so many emails to go through makes it very likely that you’ll miss or overlook some important emails in your inbox. It can lead to missed deadlines and opportunities.
If you're unable to respond to emails on time or if your responses are disorganized or unclear, you could give the impression that you are unreliable or disorganized. It can result in a detrimental effect on your professional reputation.
These are some of the reasons why it is important to take control of your inbox. By implementing the strategies that we’ll explore below, you can avoid the negative effect of email fatigue on your work.
Now that we have explored what is email fatigue, you might be wondering:
How do I stop email overloading?
Well, email overload can be tackled by implementing strategies to better manage your emails.
We also recommand you have a look at the best email management software, as using one will drastically help you in your quest of conquering email overload.
Here are some tips to help you overcome email overload.
Instead of constantly checking your inbox, set aside specific times of the day to focus on emails. This can help you stay focused and avoid the constant interruptions that come with constantly checking your inbox.
When you check your email only at specific times, you can focus on your work and avoid getting distracted by constant notifications.
Another positive aspect of only checking your emails at dedicated times is to be able to prioritize which emails need your attention the most more easily. Indeed, by constantly checking your inbox throughout the day, it can be more difficult to see the emails that are the most urgent.
A good way to start is by dedicating specific times of the day to checking your email, such as in the morning, after lunch, and at the end of your work. This can help you stay on top of your inbox while still allowing you to focus on other tasks throughout the day. We recommend that you also set a limit on the amount of time you spend on emails during each session and that you make sure to stick to it.
Set your email to check for new messages at specific intervals. This will give you a chance to focus on your work and not get distracted by constant notifications.
By turning off notifications or simply disabling certain notifications, you can avoid the constant interruptions and distractions that come with constant email alerts. It can help you focus on your work and make sure you are not getting distracted by incoming messages. Additionally, by reducing the number of notifications you receive, you can make sure that you follow the first strategy which is to check and respond to emails only during dedicated times.
Another way to use this strategy is by setting your email client to check for new messages at specific intervals, like every hour. It will give you a chance to focus on your work, but still, get the new messages on time. You can achieve this in Missive by following this simple guide.
Another strategy to help manage email overload is to use filters and labels to organize your incoming messages. By using filters, you can automatically sort your emails into different folders based on criteria such as sender, subject, or specific keywords. This can help you quickly find the emails you need later and keep your inbox organized.
Filters and labels can be used in a variety of ways to better organize your inbox, here are a few examples:
With Missive rules and labels organizing your emails is easy. Best of all, they can also be used to manage shared mailboxes and emails.
Using filters your messages will be easier to find and you’ll spend less time searching through your inbox. You’ll also be able to prioritize and manage your emails, allowing you to respond to the most important and time-sensitive messages first.
If you find yourself with an inbox cluttered with newsletters and marketing emails then this tip is most likely for you. Unsubscribing to all the email subscriptions that you no longer read will reduce the number of unnecessary emails you receive.
A lot of us accumulate a large number of email subscriptions over time, like newsletters, marketing emails, and promotional emails. But these messages can quickly clutter up your inbox, making it challenging to find the important emails you need.
By unsubscribing from these emails, you can significantly reduce the number of messages you’ll need to go through in your inbox, making it easier to find the emails you need to read and respond to.
To stop receiving these emails you can either do it manually by unsubscribing to each email list you don't want to be part of anymore (or never wanted to in the first place) or use a third-party tool that can help you unsubscribe from multiple emails at once. Some examples are Unroll.me and Cleanfox.
This tip will help you to prioritize and manage your emails more efficiently, allowing you to respond to the most important and time-sensitive messages first.
Using the right tools is an important aspect of managing email overload. While popular email clients like Gmail and Outlook can be good for managing your work emails, they might not be the best solution for achieving an empty inbox or at least keeping it at a manageable level.
Missive is a great option that offers several functionalities that can help you manage your personal and shared inbox.
With the right tool, you can:
Missive can be a great tool to help you achieve inbox zero by providing a set of functionalities to manage, prioritize and organize your emails. It can help you overcome email fatigue.
Constantly checking and responding to emails can be demanding and time-consuming.
It's important to take breaks and give yourself time to recharge during your day. Consider setting limits on the amount of time you spend on email each day to prevent burnout.
Another good piece of advice is avoiding check your emails before or after work. It will help you separate your work and personal life, and reduce the feelings of stress or burnout related to your work emails.
By taking breaks and setting limits on the time you spend on email, you can reduce feelings of overwhelm and stressed, and increase your productivity. It's important to find the right balance for you and stick to it to be more productive and efficient when managing your emails.
Communicating clear expectations with your colleagues and clients is also a great strategy to reduce email overload.
Make sure that your colleagues and clients know what to expect in terms of your availability and response times. It will help manage their expectations and reduce the number of emails you receive.
You can start by setting up guidelines for response times, sharing your availability, and creating protocols for the different types of communication your receive.
With clear expectations, you can avoid confusion and misunderstandings that can lead to unnecessary email traffic. For example, if you let your colleagues know that you only check email at certain times of the day, they'll be less likely to expect an immediate response from you outside of those times.
Additionally, by setting up protocols for specific types of communication, such as using Missive chats or Slack for internal communications, you can help ensure that your colleagues don’t fill your inbox with unnecessary emails.
Another key aspect of managing expectations is setting up an out-of-office message when you're away, with clear instructions on who to reach in case of emergencies.
By communicating your expectations and establishing clear guidelines, you can create a more efficient and manageable email system for yourself and your team.
Utilizing the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to help you reply to emails, compose new emails, and even translate communications can be useful to avoid being overwhelmed by your inbox.
With the OpenAI integration in Missive, you can leverage the power of AI to automate some tasks and work smarter, not harder.
For example, the new Missive integration can suggest quick responses to emails based on context. This can save you time and streamline your email management.
Additionally, it can also assist in composing new emails or help you write emails more clearly and efficiently. The OpenAI integration can even translate communications for better international collaboration or support
By using AI to assist you with email management, you can work more efficiently and have more time to focus on the other tasks that counts the most.
Using email templates can help you respond to common types of emails more efficiently
One of the best ways to use email templates is by using a tool like Missive which has a built-in response templates feature. Missive allows you to create and manage your library of responses, which you can easily access and apply when responding to emails. This can save you a lot of time and make your email communication more efficient.
You can create templates for different types of messages, such as follow-up emails, sales pitches, automated out-of-office responses, and even reply to frequent support questions. Once you've created your templates, you can easily access them from within Missive and apply them to new messages with just a few clicks. Best of all you can also share them with your team.
Overall, response templates in Missive can help you to streamline your email communication, and save you time in the process, by allowing you to easily use pre-written messages. This can help you to respond more efficiently, and maintain a consistent and professional tone throughout your emails.
By implementing these strategies, you can more effectively manage your email inbox and reduce the feelings of overwhelm and stress that can come with email overload.
Email overload is something many of us struggle with. But there are lots of ways to conquer it.
Strategies we’ve explored in this article will help you manage your emails and make your communication more efficient and less stressful.
It's also important to recognize the signs of email overload and identify the causes, keep track of the time you spend on emails to make sure it's not taking away from your most important tasks. With the right tools, like Missive, and strategies in place, you can take control of your inbox and get back to being productive and successful.
March 25, 2025
Outlook vs Gmail for Business: Which is better?
Welcome to the great business email debate—Gmail or Outlook?
Welcome to the great business email debate—Gmail or Outlook?
Emails are the lifeblood of many businesses. They’re how people inquire about your services, it's how you communicate with clients and vendors, and maybe it's even how you communicate internally with your team.
We'll be doing an in-depth analysis of the two big email providers (Gmail vs Outlook). And give you the information you need to make a decision on which email service you'd like to build your communication system from.
We'll be going over:
There are two ways to create an email with Google.
You can either have a free, personal email address that ends in @gmail.com, with limited storage (15gb across your Google Suite), or you can pay for Google Workspace (Gmail for business) and create an email address with your business domain: @yourcompany.com, have more storage, and more admin/security controls over your email service.
The Google Workspace business plans vary:
Whether you have a Gmail account or a Google Workspace account, your inbox will look similar.
This is where Google shines. Their real-time collaborative documents were a game changer when they launched back in 2006 and has become the preferred tools for many organizations since.
When looking at Gmail's security measures for Google Workspace accounts, here are two that stand out:
Gmail uses TLS for email transit and has encryption at rest and in transit.
With over 1.8 billion Gmail users worldwide, there are some very well known issues and tradeoffs within the Gmail's functionality. Here are three common ones:
Like Gmail, Outlook is Microsoft's free, personal email service; Microsoft 365 is essentially Outlook for business, equivalent to Google Workspace.
Here's an overview of the Microsoft 365 plans (assuming an annual payment, as of April 1, 2025):
With thousands of enterprise customers, Outlook's security and privacy are tuned for those standards.
And just like Gmail, Outlook uses TLS encryption for email in transit. And data at rest is also encrypted.
As with most decisions in life, it depends.
Google Workspace is collaborative at its core, though its shared inbox and email automation options are more limited.
Microsoft Outlook is more robust in it's DNA overall, but can feel overly complex and lacking in modern design.
If your business prioritizes simplicity and collaboration with clients, team members, and vendors—I would err on the side of Gmail and Google Workspace.
If you work in a field with a lot of sensitive information (i.e. law, accounting, etc), then I would err on the side of Outlook and their very high standard for security controls.
Whether you choose Gmail or Outlook, there are some business email hygiene factors to follow:
Neither Outlook or Gmail was really designed for teams. They added on some lightweight features (shared mailboxes), but if you truly live in your inbox everyday, replying to clients, team members, and vendors—you'll want something designed specifically for team collaboration and shared inboxes.
That would be us—Missive!
Missive is an email client that sits on top of your chosen email service—whether that's Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo Mail, or Apple Mail.
It has all the features that are loved in Gmail and Outlook—labels, rules, snoozing, but supercharged with more functionality. Including AI powered rules that allow for auto-translation, auto-labeling, and so much more.
But don't just take our word for it, here's Arif, a lawyer and long time Outlook user, who recently signed up for Missive:
When I open Missive, I can hit Inbox Zero quickly. I never had that feeling with Outlook.
And here's Pat, a property manager and Gmail user, who recently signed up for Missive:
We’ve tried so many shared inbox solutions. Missive was unexpectedly powerful. Suddenly, we weren’t scrambling over lost emails or letting days slip by.
So whether you're Team Gmail for business or Team Outlook for business—you can try Missive today and get the best collaborative email client for businesses.
March 17, 2025
What Is the Best Email Client for Outlook? Our Top 6 Picks
Looking for the best email client for Outlook? We compare the top 6 Outlook alternatives based on collaboration, AI features, security, and pricing. Discover the best option for teams and individuals—whether you need shared inboxes, AI automation, or a unified email experience.
Email is the medium of business. It's how requests, deals, hires, are started and made.
Most businesses live in their inbox, whether they like it or not. And that inbox is likely an Outlook inbox — over 3.7 million companies use Microsoft Outlook for email management.
The are two main reasons for that:
However, like Word or Excel, Outlook was made mostly for enterprise solo use. It wasn't made for collaboration, even as the world of business and email moved towards needing more and more collaboration.
In 2025, several tools meet the security and control standards of Outlook while offering far more powerful inbox collaboration and coordination features suited for modern businesses.
We'll cover what to look for in an Outlook email client, introduce the six most popular third-party options, and break down their key differences.
All options have desktop and mobile email apps and support IMAP, MAPI, and POP3.
Plus, we'll cover a range of price points for the best Outlook alternatives—including ones that are free email clients.
Missive is a collaborative inbox for teams that run on email. This means it is designed with collaboration as a priority, featuring contextual in-email chat using @mentions—eliminating the need for forwarding.
You can assign or watch emails, and every action is logged—giving you visibility into emails and tracking who did what and when.
On top of that, Missive supports all email providers (Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo, Apple Mail, etc) and you can have multiple accounts (personal and business).
Under the hood, Missive has a powerful automation engine, allowing you to do things like:
From a security perspective, Missive meets the same gold standard as Outlook. They have an SOC 2 Type II report, encryption of data at rest and in transit, and they are GDPR compliant.
For pricing, Missive plans start at $14/user/month on an annual plan.
One thing to note, if you use folders in Outlook, they are called labels in Missive.
In the same way that some teams prefer Google Docs to Word because of their collaboration functionality (commenting, multi-player drafting, etc) — you may prefer Missive as your email app to Outlook, if you find yourself hitting reply all and forward all the time.
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Thunderbird stands out as the only open-source email client.
It's a community-driven, free email client, that has been around for nearly two decades. With a thriving online community and an ecosystem of 1200+ add-ons (including AI-powered ones to help you draft replies), it's considered one of the best email apps for those prioritizing a free and open sourced solution.
If you're looking for an email client that has more collaboration functionality, Thunderbird's collaboration features come mostly from its third-party add-ons—things like mail merging and adding notes/comments to emails. Which makes collaboration possible, but likely a little unreliable given the nature of third-party connections failing from time to time.
From an organization perspective, Thunderbird calls their version of "folders", tags. Functionally, they are the same.
Thunderbird is a very privacy forward email app with built-in filters for phishing/spam and remote image blocking.
Though, it doesn't have the same compliance certifications (i.e. SOC or ISO) due to it's free and open-source nature.
Mailbird is for those of you who have way too many email accounts. It's known for it's unified inbox, where you're able to flow multiple accounts into the same consolidated inbox view.
Mailbird doesn't offer any features related to collaboration or coordination. It's more of a productivity improvement for Outlook power users who would like to integrate a few popular apps into their email workflow and see all emails in one place.
From an AI perspective, Mailbird offers simple AI drafting through ChatGPT.
Of all the Outlook alternatives on this list, Mailbird has the most similar user experience to Outlook—for example, their naming conversions are the same (folders are folders, and not labels or tags).
For security and compliance, Mailbird is only GDPR compliant and does not have any external audits or certifications.
For pricing, Mailbird has a free version as well as a premium version that's $4.99/user/month. There is also a pay once option to buy the product outright at $49.50 (standard) or $99.75 (premium).
If you manage multiple Outlook accounts and need a unified inbox for all your emails, Mailbird might be the perfect solution.
eM Client is a very similar email client to Mailbird. Most of their features are productivity focused for individuals—shortcuts, watch/snooze, configurable layout.
The most unique and powerful feature for eM Client is their search. Not only does the search cover all messages in your inbox, it can also search within certain types of attached files—think PDFs, Word docs, etc.
On the collaboration front, they don't have much beyond the ability to share folders (aka. labels), calendars, and accounts.
Like Mailbird, eM Client offers basic AI drafting to assist with typos and tone in your replies.
On security and compliance, eM Client is GDPR compliant (though possibly outdated with 2018 references) and does not have any external audits or certifications.
For pricing, eM Client has a sharp distinction between personal and business plans. There is a free plan for non-commercial use. The paid plans can be an annual subscription or a one-time payment.
The personal plan (without AI features) is $39.95/year or $49.95 as a one-time payment.
The business plan (with AI features) is $49.95/year or a one-time payment of $188.95.
Both one-time payment options do not include future feature updates. You can purchase lifetime upgrades separately at $90 per license.
If you're looking for a slightly more productive version of Outlook and you want a free email app because you're not using it for commercial purposes—then eM Client might be a good option.
If you're a Mac user and you really don't want to download another email client. Does the out-of-the-inbox (get it?) mail app from Apple work well for Outlook?
Well, compared to Thunderbird, Mailbird, and eM Client—Apple Mail isn't going to give you any increased functionality.
If you use Apple Mail as your Outlook email client, you won't have the integrated calendar or task management, and you'll have to remember that folders are "labels" in Apple Mail.
The good news is that Apple Mail can support multiple accounts from multiple providers (via IMAP and SMTP standards), so if you have a Gmail account and an Outlook account that you would like to unify into one very well designed, simple inbox—Apple Mail can do that.
If you want a free email client with a cleaner design than Outlook and don’t require advanced features, Apple Mail might be your best option.
When Superhuman first came out, it was solely focused on Gmail and Google email users. As of May 2022, they also support Outlook users.
From a user interface perspective, Superhuman is the most distinct of this list. It looks nothing like an Outlook inbox, so if familiarity is a requirement, this might not be a good fit.
Superhuman offers several AI-powered features, the most notable being its ability to answer questions about your inbox.
Instead of traditional search (even as powerful as eM Client's), you can ask your inbox direct questions. Instead of needing to remember a file's name to look for a specific piece of information, you could say: What was the price that John from ACME quoted me?
On the collaboration front, Superhuman offers the ability to @mention your colleagues through Team Comments.
From a security and compliance perspective, they are compliant with SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, CCPA, and GDPR.
For pricing, Superhuman is on the higher end of these email clients, starting at $25/user/month on an annual plan.
To summarize our options for the best email client for Outlook users, we sorted them into two categories:
We hope this has been a helpful overview of the types of email clients that are out there for Outlook users. If you're interested in Missive, continue on and we'll get into some tactical information.
Stephanie at Lighting Dynamics, manages 100+ email quotes a day. Her team used to use Outlook for email management:
With traditional Outlook forwarding, once an email was out of the shared inbox, there was no visibility. We never knew if it had been handled. It was chaotic.
And now, with Missive: "Missive checked all our boxes. It was a huge relief to see we could maintain the shared inbox model—without building custom software from scratch."
Or Kason, from i-SOLIDS, who grew his sales team beyond himself:
We got to a point where we weren't providing the same level of communication, response, and service that allowed us to get to this point. We were relying on Outlook email and it was like 'are you responding to that or am I?'
And after a month with Missive, Kason recommends: "Don't think about just choosing a tool for today but this tool needs to work for scale too—that's a major decision factor."
Get a detailed walk through of how to configure Outlook to Missive, including terminology differences to get you acclimated to your new inbox.
Well like most things, it depends. If you're a team who lives in their inbox day and day out, and you're looking a collaboration-first inbox—we hope you'll give Missive a try.
