How do you handle email?

[EastWest Gal]

I get emails all the time from companies with which I do business. I still get emails from "professional head hunters" even though I have tried to unsubscribe. I spend a few dollars per year for an email sorting service (initials SB), which overall works well but I need to go in and separate the wheat from the chaff far too often. It's mostly chaff.

I'm looking for tips on how to prevent these emails from showing up in the first place and how to permanently delete them from my life.

What do you do? What works and what doesn't? Please share. We could all benefit from this conversation.

 

[njhowie]

Does your email provider not give you the ability to set up rules/filters which allow you to automatically delete inbound messages from particular domains, with certain words in the subject or body?

 

[aja8888]

I don't think you can "prevent" emails from coming, but you can mark them as SPAM and never see them again. That's what I do and it seems to work. I also have a "drop down" email account at Yahoo.com that I use when I have to input my email for a website. Once in a while I go to that Yahoo account and mark emails as SPAM too.

Unsubscribing is a usually waste of time as that may or may not work.

 

[Car-Guy]

My spam filter(s) seem to work pretty well (lots of stuff in my spam folders) and for those that make it through, I'll either unsubscribe or flag them as spam... In a few days they "usually" stop. Sort of like filtering on this form... I see some users names and I'll just keep on going or if bad enough, I'll add to my ignore list.

 

[COcheesehead]

I unsubscribe to the ones I can. Mark others as junk.

 

[sengsational]

The spam filter in Gmail required more effort to go in and get things that should not have gone to spam in the first place, so I turned that off, and everything gets loaded into Thunderbird (desktop email client). If something is bugging me, I add a rule to put it to trash or to a dedicated folder.

I have separate email addresses for everything, using spamgourmet. You make up a base email, and customize the beginning portion. They forward the email to your real email. It's free. By default, the email gets 10 forwards, then shuts off. You can go in and bump the counter up to as high as 20 whenever you want. Unfortunately, the list of domains has made it's way into the throw-away email databases, so sometimes the site demanding the email address rejects it...like they rejected burner phone numbers.

 

[JRon]

We have used Yahoo mail for about 20 years and up till about a year ago it was very good at deleting spam mail automatically. Now, it doesn’t work too good. My assumption is it will work again if I upgrade to their premium service.

My plan is to migrate to Apple mail which allows me to right click on an e-mail address I don’t want to hear from and Block it so I never see those again. We will keep our Yahoo address for one time events where we are forced to give an e-mail and then rarely check it.

 

[aja8888]

Well, one can be like the current crop of youngsters and just text rather than use email at all. (we have a few in our family)

 

[Sarah S]

Apple has a hide my email option now which I am using for one time or short term needs ( like ordering from a place one time). The emails show up in your regular account and when you are done with that business you can deactivate it. I realize that doesn’t help you op even if you have an apple device. Is it worth abandoning the current email and then starting with 1 or more new? Perhaps one for personal emails if you get them, one for business or one for throwaway?

 

[Gumby]

I have Windows live mail, and marking things as junk, blocking sender, and blocking sender's domain seem to have little to no effect on keeping my inbox free of spam. The same emails keep popping up.

 

[OldShooter]

My experience with spam filters is that they generally do a good job with routine spam, plus have "whitelist" and "blacklist" tables where you can enter individual email addresses or whole domains. For your case, a blacklist entry should block the head hunters and other known problems. You have to check the spam trap from time to time and whitelist correspondents that were trapped where you didn't want them to be.

Clicking "unsubscribe" on spam is generally a bad idea because it simply confirms to the spammer that you have opened the mail and your email address is a good one. Similarly, your email reader should default to not downloading the graphics in an email. Most spammers will have seeded the email with a one-pixel white dot that, when downloaded, confirms that the email has been opened and that your email address is good. I will click "unsubscribe" where I know I am dealing with a reputable business. Home Depot, for example. But that is the only time.

 

[W2R]

My e-mail has a "check box" to the left of each e-mail listed. It's pretty simple to scroll down and check off all the spams as I go and then hit the trash bin icon (without opening them; it's easy to tell which are spams from the titles).

Thank goodness for that; there are so many of them. 16 today, most from businesses where I ordered something at some time in my life.

 

[timbervest]

Gmail does a pretty good job of sorting into categories - spam or what I have designated as spam goes to the SPAM folder bypassing the inbox. Advertisements and other none essentials go to PROMOTIONS which I review and empty daily. Things that are legitimate updates (password resets and things I interact with) end up in UPDATES (again curated daily). That leaves mostly personal stuff going to INBOX. If something new comes in that needs to automatically go to one of the other folders I label it and Gmail apparently "learns" what to do going forward.

I am not sure how this all got set up but I've had Gmail for 12 years and it all seems to work fine

 

[Cobra9777]

I mainly use gmail. But I don't use the gmail app on my phone, nor the web app on my PC. I use BlueMail on my phone and eM Client on all my PCs. These apps handle all my email accounts quite well.

Gmail takes care of spam pretty efficiently. If something does sneak through, I... (a) report it as spam, and (b) block it. For legit commercial email from businesses I've used, I just unsubscribe if it gets to be too much. So my gmail inbox is very manageable. I don't let gmail sort things for me.

I also have some throw-away email accounts with Yahoo and the like. They also work well at screening out obvious spam. But they let through a lot more unsolicited commercial email. Like I just got one from eHarmony.com, encouraging me to review my matches. I've never been to their site or any online dating site. At the bottom of the email it says this:

This is an advertisement. You are the recipient of this e-mail newsletter because you have, by either purchasing products or participating in online actions, agreed to receive messages from us or our marketing partners.

That could literally mean anything. I unsubscribed. Though I usually don't even bother with the throw-aways. That's what they're for. To divert junk email away from my real gmail address.

 

[timbervest]

Clicking "unsubscribe" on spam is generally a bad idea because it simply confirms to the spammer that you have opened the mail and your email address is a good one.

Agree. These get labeled as SPAM and automatically bypass my inbox and go to the SPAM folder. They can send me emails all day but they will never be opened and will be deleted each day. Only unsubscribe to legit businesses. Usually I have ordered something online and they then think I want to order more every single day

 

[caninelover]

Gmail does a pretty good job of sorting into categories - spam or what I have designated as spam goes to the SPAM folder bypassing the inbox. Advertisements and other none essentials go to PROMOTIONS which I review and empty daily. Things that are legitimate updates (password resets and things I interact with) end up in UPDATES (again curated daily). That leaves mostly personal stuff going to INBOX. If something new comes in that needs to automatically go to one of the other folders I label it and Gmail apparently "learns" what to do going forward.

I am not sure how this all got set up but I've had Gmail for 12 years and it all seems to work fine

+1. Gmail's sorting is pretty good. I pretty much ignore the Promotions tab and focus on Priority and Updates.

 

[Jerry1]

I don’t worry too much about it. I have found that unsubscribing works pretty good to reduce the garbage. I also have three email accounts (all gmail). One I manage very strictly and only use it for certain things like forums, Facebook . . . I don’t get much in that account which is a little surprising since I thought they’d be the most likely to sell/share my email. Then I have one that is complete garbage for any time someone want my email for no good reason - like to read an article or whatever. That one has a ton of garbage. Every now and then I go in and just delete everything. Then there’s my day to day email. I unsubscribe to things that I get tired of like merchants I’ve done business with and think I need and email every day to remind me to buy something else from them. I also get a fair amount of spam in that account but gmail handles it pretty well and I just clear that out every so often. But mainly, since I look at my email pretty much daily, I just read what I want and don’t open emails that are legit but just not something I care about. Accordingly, I have 16K unread emails. Since I’m not paying for space, I don’t care. When I need something, I search for it - I don’t put anything in folders or organize it in any way. The search function has not failed me yet.

One thing I am thinking of doing is setting up a separate address for some of my financial accounts like Fidelity etc. No hurry though as things seem to be working good right now.

 

[COcheesehead]

Apple’s latest update allows you to create an anonymous email address each time you send one which then are all connected to your base email that no one ever sees.

 

[Montecfo]

I have 3 email accounts.

1. ancient AOL (redundant I know) use for things likely to generate spam. I do not worry too much about keeping it clean. It's pretty easy for me at this point to find anything important in there. I review daily.
2. Outlook-use for friends/family only. clean as a whistle.
3. Gmail. use only for Android apps on phone. Also clean as a whistle.

As an aside, if you go into an electronics store and you are cashing out, they ask for your email.

Give them ancient aol email and they don't even try to sell you extended warranties, know you want a paper receipt, and a bag.

Just one benefit of ancient aol.

 

[PaunchyPirate]

I currently use 2 gmail accounts. One I use when I suspect I might get spammed or start getting undesirable mail. The other I use for official business and friends and family. Google does a pretty good job of filtering out true spam from both. So much so that I rarely look to see if something was inadvertently marked as spam. I never see the spam and it gets deleted after 30 days.

I use an email client on my computers, phone and tablet. I use Outlook on my Windows PC and I use Apple’s Mail app on my Mac computer, iPhone and iPad. They all directly, and nicely, work with Gmail. I see the mail from both email addresses in the apps at the same time.

I’ve worked this way for years.

 

[Qs Laptop]

I have 3 email accounts.

1. ancient AOL (redundant I know) use for things likely to generate spam. I do not worry too much about keeping it clean. It's pretty easy for me at this point to find anything important in there. I review daily.

As an aside, if you go into an electronics store and you are cashing out, they ask for your email.

Give them ancient aol email and they don't even try to sell you extended warranties, know you want a paper receipt, and a bag.

Just one benefit of ancient aol.

So I'm not the only one still using an AOL email account (I got mine in 1995.)

It's wonderful to use for things you figure might generate spam. Their spam filters are incredible too. I delete my Junk Mail folder every Monday morning and there is typically 500 - 750 crap emails in there every week.

I've found that unsubscribing works pretty well. There was a time when the advice not to use unsubscribe for fear it would tip off spammers to a valid email address was a strategy, but nowadays I've found unsubscribe works. Might take 2 or 3 times before it takes hold, depending on the sender's setting for actions to take when receiving an unsubscribe request.

Otherwise to the OP, depending on which email client you have you should be able to right click on the email and "block Sender" or "mark as junk" or some other options. After a while your software will learn not to allow emails from these senders to get to your inbox.

 

[Koolau]

Some good advice so far.

When I quit Megacorp, I did not own a computer (or have email outside of Megacorp). So I "disappeared" for a year or so. Once I got an email account again, I carefully watched how I shared the address. Now, I have multiple accounts which seems to w*rk too. YMMV