Stupid Simple Mac Tips #70 – Black Hole Fun
Last week I introduced SaneBox, a web-based service that works with your existing email client (and a bit of wizardry) to keep your inbox uncluttered and workflow unencumbered…today, we’ll take a look at one of its specific features: the SaneBlackHole.
It may sound like a Seattle band from the 90s, but SaneBlackHole is a simple solution that trains your email to divert repeat solicitous emails, so they never invade your inbox more than once.
You know the type of email I mean – ones that avoid filters because they’re not exactly SPAM, but are certainly some sort of disgusting canned meat (apologies to our Hawaiian friends); usually, a legitimate vendor or salesperson who just won’t take “no” for an answer.
If you try to unsubscribe, you confirm a live account…if you simply delete the message, they’re bound to follow-up…you could construct a custom filter, but that wastes more time than the intrusion deserves.
Enter: SaneBlackHole.
The tool sits like a folder on the sidebar of your inbox, ready to gobble-up garbage and vanquish invaders to the void – just drag the message over, drop it in the “hole,” and SaneBox does the rest: disposing of the email and any future forays from the same source.
The process couldn’t be easier and is quite satisfying (I tend to let out a cathartically evil “Mwu-ha-ha” with every banishment, but this is purely optional).
Messages sit unseen in the folder for a week in case you make a mistake, and senders can always be re-approved via an intuitive dashboard…but why glance back when SaneBlackHole lets us focus forward on more productive days?
It’s absolute Nirvana.
Next week, we’ll take a look at how SaneBox helps prioritize your time with its SaneLater tool.
Catch you (Sane)Later!
I snuck in 2 of Seattle’s best grunge rock bands there. Who else would enter your Top 3 list?
