Your unread message count is shown in that little red circle with a number on the Mail icon in the Dock. It’s a useful reminder of how many emails you need to read or respond to.

Of course, if you leave unread mail in your Inbox that number starts to grow and pretty soon it’s so large it’s only serves to depress you every time you look at it.

So… how do organize your Inbox a little better?

• The first thing to do is create an Archive Mailbox. From the drop-down menu, choose Mailbox > New Mailbox…
• For Location select the iCloud. This will give you access to this new Mailbox on all your synced Devices.
• Name the Mailbox “Archive.”

The new Archive Mailbox appears in the sidebar under iCloud.

Now, you are going to move most of the emails from your Inbox to this Archive Mailbox.

Obviously, you need to leave important emails in your Inbox. Most people find that everything older than a month is just waiting to be filed or deleted.

• Drag everything older than a month out of the Inbox and drop it in the Archive Mailbox.

Remember that these Mailboxes are in the iCloud so it can take 5 to 10 minutes for that task to complete. Be patient. You don’t want to interrupt the process.

You’ll know it’s finished when the indicator in the Mail Activity box disappears.

• Over time, you can go through the emails in your Mailbox Archive and either keep them, file them or delete them.

Your Inbox now holds less than a months worth of mail.

• Take 30 minutes and go through it so that not a single email is left unread.
• If there are emails you need to respond to, flag them using the Flag tool in the Mail Toolbar.

When you are finished, you should have no unread emails in your Inbox. That little red number on the Mail icon in the Dock will disappear.

The next time that number shows up will be when you have new mail. And now… it will actually mean something.

If you have questions about this post or need Mac, iPhone or iPad help call us at 310-621-5679.