How To Get Rid of Spam Emails | 5 Quick Steps

Have you ever wondered what life would be like without spam email? Imagine a decluttered inbox, with nothing but essential emails from your boss and adorable messages from your loved ones.

For most of us, the scenario presented above is as unbelievable as Batman running for the presidential election. But we can still dream, right?

In a multitude of ways, email has made our lives much easier. We can use emails with accessible communication at our fingertips.

However, the majority of our inboxes are filled with so much spam, that even the mere thought of cleaning and decluttering is enough to make us procrastinate for days.

Ways To Get Rid Of Spam Emails:

Fortunately, as unbelievable and absurd as it may seem, there are some tried and tested ways in which you can get rid of spam emails for good, which are as follows:

 1- Teach your filter to identify spam:

Perhaps the most natural step that you can take to defeat the ongoing battle against spam email is to train your filter to recognize and delete spam.

Whenever you find spam email cluttering your inbox, instead of just deleting it, report it as spam.

For instance, if you’re using the Gmail web app, you’ll find a ‘Report Spam’ button at the top of the page, which looks like an exclamation mark. Any email that you mark as spam will help Google better identify and delete spam emails in the future.

Similarly, if you’re using Outlook, you can mark an email as spam by right-clicking and selecting ‘Junk’ and then clicking on ‘Block Sender.’

On the other hand, you can also help your email client to identify emails that were classified as spam by mistake.

In Gmail, to mark an email as a false positive, all you need to do is click on the ‘Not Spam’ button. In Outlook, you need to go through the Junk folder and retrieve a flagged email by right-clicking and then selecting ‘Not Junk.’

If you have an email account with any reasonable client, it will recognize and arrange your spam folder accordingly to the instructions you give and strengthen its built-in spam detection filter.

2- Unsubscribe and don’t reply to spam emails:

One of the most rookie mistakes that a user can make while dealing with spam email is to respond to them.

Replying to a spam email is like taking a tablespoon full of salt and aggressively rubbing it all over an oozing wound. Why would you want to do that?

If you see and recognize an email as spam, just by viewing the subject, don’t open the email.

 But, if you can’t decide whether an email is a spam or not, open the email, but make sure that you don’t click on a link or download any file, even if you have the tiniest of suspicion.

Replying to spam email often has devastating consequences, which results in malware entering your computer or some financial fraud.

If you find a spam email from a colleague or loved one, make sure you inform them that their email account has been compromised or hacked.

Another type of standard error that most email users make is to not unsubscribe from commercial spam emails.

Emails from advertisers are usually harmless in their design, but they can get annoying quickly. A simple solution is to unsubscribe by clicking on the link that often appears on the bottom of such an email. 

You could try using third-party apps such as Unroll.me, which gives its users the option to unsubscribe from pesky spam emails in one efficient click.

3- Protect your Email address:

As a general rule of thumb, be aware of the fact that the more number of people that will have your email, the more spam emails you are likely to receive.

Many of the unwarranted spam emails that you receive are probably because you ordered a product online, or maybe you subscribed, albeit unknowingly, to a mailing list or a newsletter of some sort.

A lucrative step that you can take to stop, or slow down the constant bombardment of spam emails in your account is to hide or protect your email address.

Ways to protect Email Address:

Some ways in which you can protect your email address include:

• Avoid publishing your email address on any of your social media accounts, or the web in general.

• Use a burner email account. Email clients such as Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook allows you to create an email account for free, which you can then use to subscribe to mailing lists, etc.

• Use Blur. Blur is a free Firefox and Google Chrome extension which enables users to hide their email addresses. Similar options include mailshell and spamex.

• Try creating a separate email account for work and home, so that it doesn’t declutter regularly, and becomes easier to organize.

4- Use anti-spam filters:

If you’ve been enjoying a vacation in the Maldives and haven’t had the time to manage your email account. You might find yourself in a bit of a tight spot when you return.

Your email inbox might be resembling a battlefield when you get back. You might be trying to look for an important email that you need to respond to. But all you find staring at is spam.

If the situation mentioned above is similar to your plight. Then you might want to consider using an anti-spam filter or extension.

An anti-spam filter or extension aids your email client to remove those emails that sneaked past the built-in spam detectors present.

Anti-Spam Features:

Some anti-spam extensions include:

Mailwasher:

To use mailwasher all you need to do is enter in your email credentials. Later the service automatically applies a series of smart filters to recognize and erase spam. To top it all off, it’s completely free.

SpamSieve:

For MacOS users, SpamSieve is a reliable option. You can effectively get rid of spam, for a meager price of $30 only.

 SpamCop:

SpamCop provides pretty much the same service as SpamSieve. With the significant difference of being free and setting out to eradicate spam from its source.

5- Change your email address:

Yes, at first glance it does seem a tad bit extreme. Changing your email address can be a pretty big deal for some people.

However, if you genuinely want to start from new, without the shadows of spam emails following you on your online adventures. Then the best option is changing your email address.

Email accounts are free and easy to create. You’ll have to do is inform your colleagues and relatives about the transition.

But once, you get rid of your old email and take the necessary precautions (most of which have been mentioned in this article). The number of spam emails in your inbox should drop significantly.

Conclusion:

Now, that you know all about spam emails and how to stop them. The next thing to do on your to-do list should be to finally enter the lair of the dragon. It is also known as your spam folder- and get decluttering!