It’s very easy to get overwhelmed by your inbox, but this is something that EmailTray tries to address. While email is an indispensible tool for every day communication, it can also be a tremendous distraction. Even if you are not receiving notifications of the arrival of new emails, it is possible to spend too much time checking your inbox to see if new messages have arrived. This is time that could be put to better use, particularly if you discover that the only email to have arrived is not all that important.

EmailTray is a handy tool that enables you to take control of your inbox and ensure that you are only informed about the most important messages you receive. The program is capable of handling multiple email accounts – any POP3 or IMAP account is supported – so you can view all of your communication in one place. But it is the prioritizing feature that is the most intriguing. EmailTray analysing the emails you receive and, based on how you have responded to people in the past, who an email is received from and other criteria, messages are assigned a priority.

Your emails are then filtered into one of several sections and you can opt to only be notified about those emails that are deemed to have the highest priority. You can also define your own rules so that messages from a particular person, that contain a keyword or match other criteria will be automatically assigned a particular priority level, colored or flagged up for attention. With support for email backups, contact information pulled in from social network profiles, this is a great way to manage your inboxes.

The Android version of the app works in very much the same way as the desktop version of the software. As well as automatically filtering emails and spam into suitable inboxes, there are a variety of ways in which you can be notified about the arrival of mail – sound, LED and vibration. Home screen widgets are available that enable you to keep an eye on the contents of your various priority inboxes and there is the added bonus that password protection is included free of charge.