Hourly

Move newsletters out of your Outlook inbox

Newsletters and promotions leave the inbox every hour and wait in their own folder.

Runs: Hourly
Apps: Outlook
AI: Not needed
Access: Mail.ReadWrite

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every hour, move newsletter and promotional emails in my Outlook inbox to a folder called Newsletters.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

Add to ChatGPT Add to Claude

First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

A busy professional signs up for industry newsletters, retailer promotions, product updates and conference mailings over the years, and now they make up half of the inbox. Real messages from colleagues and clients are surrounded by marketing, so a customer's question can sit unread between a sale announcement and a webinar invite. Unsubscribing from everything is slow and some of them are worth reading later.

Every hour, new mail is checked for the List-Unsubscribe header, which legitimate bulk senders must include, and anything that has it is moved to a Newsletters folder you choose. The messages are kept and unread, so you can browse them over coffee, while your inbox holds mail from actual people.

It is a good first step before an inbox cleanup, and a lasting fix for people who want to keep newsletters but not see them.

What you get out of it

Real mail is easier to see
With marketing messages out of the way, the inbox shows people writing to you. A client's message no longer sits between two sale emails where it may be overlooked. That clarity is a relief when you have a day full of messages from real people waiting for answers.
Newsletters are kept, not lost
Everything goes to a folder where you can read it later or search it. You keep the content you value without letting it crowd out urgent mail. That makes the folder a useful archive, and not a place where content is lost.
It works without lists of senders
Because it relies on a header that bulk mail carries, it catches new newsletters from senders you have never heard of. You do not need to build a rule for each one.
Unread counts mean something again
When the inbox count drops from 400 to 40, it reflects actual work. The anxiety of a growing number goes away, and so does the temptation to mark everything read.
Less mental load each hour
Not deciding about each promotional message dozens of times a day saves attention. Those small decisions add up to a surprising amount of wasted time. Few people notice this cost until it is gone, and then the inbox feels lighter immediately.

How it works

What happens, step by step

Every hour, ClickRuntime checks your Outlook inbox for newsletters and promotions.
It spots them by the unsubscribe details that mailing lists include in every email.
Each one is moved to your Newsletters folder, so your inbox only holds real mail.

Before it runs live

Connect Outlook

What you get

RunsHourly

Move newsletters out of your Outlook inboxtoday, 9:00Succeeded

Outlook · NewslettersMoved 9 messages: Acme Weekly, Northwind Deals, 7 more

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.

Your own rules
Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.
Any number of apps
One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.
AI where it helps
Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.
On a schedule or on each event
Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

Run it at a different time, more or less often, or only on weekdays
Add an AI step, for example to summarize, sort or draft a reply
Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
Combine it with other Outlook steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.

move_newsletters_out_of_the_inbox.pyexample

from clickruntime import on_trigger, credentials, http

GRAPH = "https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0"
FOLDER_ID = "AAMkAD...newsletters"

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    h = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {credentials.connection('microsoft', 'work')}"}
    msgs = http.get(f"{GRAPH}/me/mailFolders/inbox/messages", headers=h,
                    params={"$select": "id,internetMessageHeaders", "$top": 50}).json()["value"]
    moved = 0
    for m in msgs:
        names = {x["name"].lower() for x in m.get("internetMessageHeaders") or []}
        if "list-unsubscribe" in names:
            http.post(f"{GRAPH}/me/messages/{m['id']}/move", headers=h, json={"destinationId": FOLDER_ID})
            moved += 1
    return {"moved": moved}

FAQ

Common questions

Will it move important emails by mistake?

Occasionally. Some services, such as receipts or system notifications, also include an unsubscribe header. You can protect important senders or domains with an exception list so their messages stay in the inbox. Putting receipts and similar senders on an exception list takes only a moment.

Does it handle mail that was already in my inbox?

The hourly check looks at recent messages. A one-time sweep of older mail can be done separately if you want to clear a backlog, and it uses the same header test to move everything that qualifies.

Is it the same as Outlook's Focused Inbox?

No. Focused Inbox is a Microsoft feature that sorts mail by likely importance using its own signals. This setup follows a specific, predictable rule, the unsubscribe header, and puts matching mail in a folder you control.

What permissions does it need?

Mail.ReadWrite. Nothing else in your accounts is used.

Does it need AI?

No. It runs without AI, so it doesn't use your plan's AI allowance.

How many runs does it use?

One run each time it runs (hourly). Checks that find nothing to do and stop right away aren't counted.

Can I change how it works?

Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

Daily