For most of us, taking a long, hard look at our inbox isn’t fun: Typically, the digital clutter and spam email is piled high, while anything useful and informative often gets lost in the deluge. Getting to inbox zero seems like an impossible task, so we close down our email apps again, only to find the situation is even worse the next time they’re opened.
We understandably avoid our overflowing inboxes, in favor of getting on with something else far more fun, but there are very good privacy reasons to want to tackle this pile of digital detritus—and there are powerful tools to help, as well (more on this shortly).
Think about the emails attached to old accounts that you leave neglected but open—each account is a way for bad actors to get at you and your data. Maybe the account uses a simple password that’s easy to guess, or the app involved has been taken over by an organization with shady intentions, or the service itself has long since gone out of business and some enterprising hackers have grabbed its unguarded databases.
Yorba breaks down your inbox into a simple dashboard. (Yorba)With all of these scenarios and more, you’re at risk. Once a hacker gets into one of your accounts, it’s easier to move on to the others, whether that’s because of a trusted connection you’ve established, or because there are key pieces of information (payment details, postal addresses) inside the exposed account.
If you’re not properly sorting through your inbox and closing down these accounts, then you might well be missing warnings that hackers breached your security. Ideally, you want to be shuttering digital accounts as soon as you’re done with them—then there’s nothing for anyone else to access.
You’ve got another reason to stay on top of your inbox: subscription fees. Almost anything digital now comes with a subscription attached, from music streamers to online publications to AI bots, and if you’re not keeping a close eye on your inbox (and your bank account), then you might end up paying a substantial amount each month for software and services you’re not actually using.
We promised tools to help further up though, and you’re not alone in attempting to clean up your digital footprint.
Enter Yorba, an online tool for people who want an easier way to manage their accounts, subscriptions, and inbox. It’s like a spring cleaning service for your email and your wider digital life, not only cutting down on the volume of messages for a clean inbox, but also tidying up what those messages are linked to.
If your email address was found in a data breach, Yorba will tell you about it. (Yorba)With a simple dashboard that helps you organize your online life, Yorba makes it easy to cancel subscriptions, delete old accounts, and stop getting unwanted emails so you can avoid surprise charges and feel in control of your digital footprint. It works across the US, Canada, and the EU, so millions of people can use it.
You can try all of this out for free, including weekly insight reports and smart suggestions about what needs cleaning up. With a Premium account, yours for $72 a year, you get more active monitoring tools and easier subscription canceling (and Yorba is thankfully ad-free too).
Not convinced yet? Yorba has some heavyweight backing too. This company is part of the Santander X 100 global community for its innovative proposal. This international community includes the most outstanding companies of Santander X, Banco Santander’s global entrepreneurship initiative, which supports SMEs, startups, scaleups and entrepreneurial projects with training programmes, online courses, benefits and discounts, exclusive events, challenges and prizes, a community of experts and a personalised financial offer.
How to use Yorba
Much of what Yorba offers is free to access: You might find you never need the advanced features that cost money, but you can definitely try out most of what’s available and decide how useful it is before parting with your cash. You can sign up with your Google account, your Microsoft account, or with an email address and password.
Yorba nicely automates the setup process. Point it towards your inbox, and it’ll scan through vast swathes of email faster than you could ever hope to, picking out mailing lists you’re subscribed to, digital accounts you’re still connected to, ongoing subscriptions that remain active, and data breaches where your email address is mentioned.
With Google and Microsoft email accounts, Yorba is able to dig deeper, helping you to find old accounts and track subscriptions that you may or may not still need. The main dashboard screen does a great job of giving you a better idea about your digital footprint. It’s a bit like looking at the screen time stats for your phone: Perhaps you haven’t realized quite how bad the problem has got, but Yorba will tell you.
See how much you’re spending through Yorba’s intuitive tools. (Yorba)When it comes to mailing lists, for example, they’re split up into categories like technology, shopping, and causes. You can see how often you open up newsletters, how many mailing list messages you’re getting every month, and then either unsubscribe from emails or keep on the list with a click.
For the data breaches, you get a similar level of detail. You can see which email addresses were exposed and when, and get quick links to delete your account or update your login credentials and passwords.
When it comes to your logins and how to delete account information, Yorba makes this straightforward as well. Each login also comes with a privacy grade, and you can see what arer the risks of your information being misused and or sold by the company. For any account you want to get rid of, there’s a Delete Account button that opens detailed instructions and direct delation links .
The subscriptions tracking feature is something you have to pay for, but you’re likely to save a lot of money if you make use of it. Based on the tool’s analysis of your inbox, you can see how much is going out, and to which companies, and in which order. Anything you’re not using can be spotted pretty quickly.
If you’ve never undertaken this kind of inbox cleanup before, it can be quite eye-opening just how much stuff you’ve actually signed up to—everything from digital publications to job listing sites to music newsletters, in my case. But even if Yorba uncovers lots to tackle, its interface never feels overwhelming.
You’re probably signed up for more accounts than you realize. (Yorba)In fact, the service does a fine job of aggregating information across multiple inboxes so you can work through the tidying up process methodically. You don’t have to tackle it all at once either: Yorba always keeps track of your progress, so you can chip away at it slowly.
Something else I liked from using the service was the way you can set yourself goals, almost like using a fitness or meditation app. You get to see how many actions you’ve taken on your inbox and how far you’ve gone in reducing the clutter and protecting your privacy—which then motivates you to do more.
There’s a decent level of customization here as well, so you can tailor Yorba in terms of what you’re aiming for and what you want to be notified about. You’ve got nothing to lose by letting the service quickly scan through your email and see what needs fixing—and Yorba won’t be as daunted as you might be by the inbox chaos.
In a digital world where your inbox can quietly become a serious privacy liability, Yorba offers a smart, accessible way to regain control, cut through the noise, and protect what matters most-your personal data!
English (US) ·