Control Your Email Inbox: Stop Email Notifications From Twitter, Facebook


Social networking is great, but it creates distracting emails. Here's how to control email overwhelm.


Social media is a great medium that connects people, their hobbies and businesses in an easy to use platform. This, of course, has increased its popularity, as well as the notifications in my email inbox from channels such as Facebook and Twitter.

So the question becomes, how to stop Facebook notifications or for that matter how to stop Twitter emails? This question becomes even more important now as the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is set to take effect on May 25, 2018.

Yes, social networking, in particular, has managed to open up our lives to the wider world in a way we would never have thought possible before the creation of the miracle known as the Internet. But it has also created a whole list of minor irritations and distractions that can build up and make life a little more stressful.

My Email Inbox

Emails flooding my email inbox about every little comment or activity on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn is a hassle. With more social networks becoming a part of life, they can now also come from Pinterest, YouTube and a dozen other sites you just don’t need to be constantly updated on.

Here’s how I handle the email craziness:

  • Use social media inboxes to get notified of social media interactions in a user-friendly, non-intrusive way (here are two tools to get productive).
  • Stop certain types of social media updates to my main inbox. All I am usually interested in learning quickly is a DM or a private message. All other types of social media updates have to go. Otherwise, I’ll have no time for work.

However, it took me ages to realize that I could stop this. All it takes is a few alterations to your settings and you are free. Or just get one of the programs made to make it even easier.

Using Settings

All social media sites have an area of your settings, sometimes in your account settings, that lets you specify what you would like to be notified of.

How to Stop Facebook Notifications

In Facebook, just simply go to Account Settings through the little gear in the top right hand corner of any Facebook page. On the left hand side will be a bar with options. Select Notifications > Email. You can choose to get all notifications except those specifically unsubscribed from, important notifications about you or activity or only notifications about problems with your account, security or privacy.

You can also select what text message notifications you get (if you are subscribed to mobile use). This includes comments on your profile, friend requests/confirmations and everything else. You may also set the times you get notifications if you don’t want them at certain hours of the night or morning.

Social networking is great, but it creates distracting emails. Here's how to control email overwhelm.

How to Stop Twitter Emails

Twitter isn’t quite so customizable, but you can still specify what you want. Just go to your account, hit the gear button on the top header, then select Settings > Email Notifications. You can choose when you get an email and who it applies to on your list. You can also choose to get an email digest weekly, daily, etc.

Using Gmail Filter

Whether you want to avoid or better organize older social media updates that get archived in your inbox (to stop them from interfering with your inbox search) or to stop the clutter from the future ones, this Gmail search command will come in handy:

  • Search: [from:noreply* OR from:do-not-reply* OR from:donotreply* OR from:notification*] This filters out most automated updates.

You can now set up a filter to send these emails to a separate folder, bypassing your inbox. Now just create a calendar reminder to check that folder once a day or a couple of times a week, depending on your workload.

Social networking is great, but it creates distracting emails. Here's how to control email overwhelm.

Using Tools to Control Email

Notify Me Not

Social networking is great, but it creates distracting emails. Here's how to control email overwhelm.

If you want more thorough directions for changing your settings, or you want them for a different site than those above, you might want to check out Notify Me Not. They cover all the social networks, including those that are only social in a secondary way like Amazon.

Easy to follow, helpful and with a complete guide on the subject, it is the number one authority on banishing annoying emails to Hell, where they belong.

Unroll Me

Social networking is great, but it creates distracting emails. Here's how to control email overwhelm.

Not only does Unroll Me allow you to get rid of unwanted emails, but it also rolls everything into a very simple, highly organized inbox for you. That means all of your emails are better formatted for easy sifting, reading and storage. Plus, it works for both Yahoo and Gmail, which means it isn’t compatible with other clients. But come on, who uses them anymore?

Know of any good programs or tips for stopping annoying social network notifications?

Photo via Shutterstock


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Ann Smarty Ann Smarty is the founder of Viral Content Bee, a social media marketing platform, and the founder of SEO Smarty, an SEO consulting and link building agency.

17 Reactions
  1. Martin Lindeskog

    Ann Smarty: I have used Unroll.me for some time now and I got a sense of relief not having to see all the incoming email messages of newsletters, notifications, etc. The next step is to implement a workflow process with daily and weekly reviews of the incoming stream so it will be more manageable.

  2. Martin Lindeskog

    For fun check out the email game by Baydin. Add your email address in the box and then click the “let’s play” button. It could be a good stress reliever now and then. 😉

  3. And if you haven’t already unsubscribed from all your daily deal emails, filtering them to their own folder where you can make the conscious decision to go look at them has been a big help for me. No more squirrel moments when a new Groupon email comes in.

  4. Great information, Ann. I began the process of purging, unsubscribing and filtering about a year ago. Have you tried the mailbox app for iPhone? There’s a lot of hype around it but I’m not sure it’s going to be the sole answer to the problem.

  5. Thank you, Ann
    I am using EmailTray – an email client that helps me control my inbox. It sorts emails according to their importance. So I always know that all important emails are in the priority folder and all the notifications I do not need now are in the low priority folder. This way I am always notified about important messages only

  6. That’s practical advice. There’s a fine line between being interactive and engaged in social media and getting overly wrapped up in it and wasting time. On the other hand, I see so many people dropping in posts generated by using posting tools and they treat social media like a one-way street-no interaction at all. An utter failure and waste of time.

  7. Thanks you SO much for this. The stupid constant social media email notifications drive me batty!

    Now if I could only figure out how to block all those silly app games that people send requests for me to play. Oh, and also how to mass terminate all those annoying event invites I get then I’d be good. 🙂

    Ti

    • I’d also love to figure how to stop my friends from adding me to their groups – Groups also send email updates of each update. That’s insane!

  8. Thanks a lot for the reminders, Ann.

    Way too many notifications coming in, for sure.

    I think I’ll dive in now, and see where I can shut some of them down.

    The Franchise King®

  9. Good practical article Ann, thanks. I think many today are fed up with being buried in e-mail, to the point that it has become a useless medium that clogs servers and consumes network bandwidth. We simply don’t need to be notified of everything.

  10. I don’t have a Facebook account, yet for the past couple weeks I have been getting emails from Facebook asking do I know this person or that person and so on. I keep putting them in Junk and Spam, but they just keep coming. Please advise. thanks in advance.

  11. Hi my email address is not with Gmail or yahoo and I would like to know please how to disable unwanted emails coming in my Inbox from certain advertising group.thank you

  12. I think this is a real great blog article. Keep writing.