Too many emails? When and how you should unsubscribe

The use of email in the UK continues to grow. An estimated 88% of the UK adult population regularly use email. Around 85% of these users access email via their mobile devices, and well over half continue to check email when out and about.

74% of email users prefer to interact with brands via email rather than SMS and social media. And for most email users, it is also an essential tool for personal finance, administration, and document handling.

But with all the above comes the real risk of email overload. When you open your inbox it’s not unusual to see a screen full of unread messages, all begging for your attention. And sometimes the only attention they get is to be instantly deleted. It could make sense to try and reduce the number of emails you are getting, to be able to focus on those that are more important.

So in this article we take a look at:

• Good reasons to unsubscribe from emails;
• What kind of emails you may want to unsubscribe from;
• A word of caution when unsubscribing.

Good reasons to unsubscribe from emails

Organising your emails can feel like a big task, and it’s tempting to just leave things as they are and delete unwanted emails as they arrive. But there are a few good reasons why it’s better to unsubscribe:

• You control who you share data with

The more email lists you are on, the more companies, organisations and individuals will have data and information about you. Even the fact that your email account is still live is valuable information in itself. It would be better to start unsubscribing from organisations you no longer want to share any data with.

• You reduce the risk of data fraud

Leading on from the above, the more email lists you are signed up for, the more vulnerable you are to data fraud. Particularly if you also have an account on the company’s website, and have a login for that. This means that your email address and passwords for those companies are out in cyberspace, with the risk of hacking and/or your details being sold online. So for personal security online it’s a good idea to cut everything back just to the companies you do want to interact with.

• You save time and effort

Even if you delete most of your incoming emails, it still takes time and effort to do that. And, in the process, you are likely to get distracted by the content of some of them. So the more unwanted emails you have, the more time you waste managing them. It can all feel very overwhelming.

So doing a cull of your emails will gradually free up time, and make your day less stressful.

• You will reduce your carbon footprint

It’s easy to overlook the fact that all our digital activity increases our carbon footprint. The carbon footprint of an average email is around 0.3 g of CO2 emissions. This increases for longer emails and those including images or attachments, up to a potential 50g of CO2 emissions per email. 

To put this in context, 50g of CO2 emissions is the equivalent of boiling a kettle or driving a small car for 2 miles.

This carbon footprint is caused by the electricity needed to transmit emails across networks and store them in data centres. Every email in your inbox is stored in a data centre. Data centres currently consume over 3% of the entire world’s electricity supply, most of which is generated from fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas. Data centres are currently estimated to produce around 2% of global greenhouse gas emissions : more than the entire aviation industry.

Every email you delete will free up space in a data centre and save resources. It’s estimated that if everyone around the globe were to delete just 10 emails, it would save 1,725,000 gigabytes of storage space. This equates to around 55.2 million kilowatts of energy : the hourly output of dozens of large power plants

What kind of emails you may want to unsubscribe from

There is no “one size fits all” answer to this. It really depends on which emails you want and need, and which you don’t. But think about any company that you regularly get newsletters, promotional offers, adverts or invitations from. If you are simply no longer interested, it’s a good time to unsubscribe, for all the reasons mentioned above.

There are two easy ways to go about unsubscribing from unwanted emails:

• Mass unsubscribe

If you want to get off to a flying start, and can spend a bit of time on it, have a go at a mass unsubscribe. Search your inbox for the word “unsubscribe” to identify all the emails to which you are currently subscribed. You may want to then “Select All” these emails and either move them into a folder or add a label (depending on your email software) so that you keep them identified separately.

Then work through them one by one and click the Unsubscribe button at the top of the email for any that you no longer want to receive. It is better to use this button than one in the text of the email itself, for reasons we will explain in the next section.

And if you also have an account on the company’s website that you no longer want, make sure to go on the website too and delete your account.

• Day to day unsubscribe

If you prefer to do a more gentle unsubscribe process, you can just do it on a day to day basis. Each time emails come into your inbox that you don’t really want, unsubscribe from them by clicking the Unsubscribe button at the top of the email.

You may also want to either delete the emails from which you have unsubscribed, or move them into an Unsubscribed folder just to check later that you actually have been unsubscribed.

And, as above, if you also have an account on the company’s website, go online to delete this too. 

A word of caution when unsubscribing

We have already mentioned that when unsubscribing from emails it’s better to use the Unsubscribe button at the top of the email – provided by your email host – than the Unsubscribe link in the email itself. Here’s why.

In some cases, the Unsubscribe button at the bottom of an email could potentially lead to phishing scams or malware attacks. This is particularly the case in spam emails i.e. emails that you have not requested. The issue is that when you click an unsubscribe link, you are directed away from the safe environment of your email provider into a browser, which is much more vulnerable to hackers. 

It’s estimated that at least one out of every 644 unsubscribe links leads to a malicious website, such as phishing sites that appear to be legitimate websites. Another possibility is that clicking a rogue unsubscribe link could result in malware being downloaded onto your device without your knowledge, especially if your browser has known security vulnerabilities.

So be careful when unsubscribing from emails, particularly if they are from companies you don’t recognise or don’t think you have signed up for. 

We hope that the above information helps you to decide which emails to unsubscribe from in 2026, and the best and safest ways to go about doing this. 

For more useful tips on everyday living and family finances check back here soon with us at Loans 2 Go.