How to get rid of spam in e-mail

There is no doubt that e-mail has already taken a large part of people’s online activity these days. It is now the main departure point for registering at various websites and resources. Any internet user has at least one, if not many e-mail addresses registered and used for various goals, be it a person-to-person communication, receiving different newsletters, updates, or simply as a two-level authentication tool for log-in security measures.

While this all sounds useful indeed, there is a dark side to this – a huge and new opportunity for cybercriminals to deliver illegitimate and intentionally malicious content to users. Such a phenomenon is known as e-mail spam. Many e-mail services are always developing new and improving existing algorithms to detect potential spam and prevent inexperienced users from falling into the evil hands of various frauds. These anti-spam mechanisms are educated enough to identify potentially unwanted messages based on different triggers (sender’s IP-address reputation, spammy language content, world-known blacklists, etc.). Having some e-mail letters categorized as spam should push users to be more careful and less trustworthy with regard to the message.

Unfortunately, there are cases when spam goes undetected, being delivered straight into your Inbox. Many newsletter subscriptions accumulated over long-time usage can also create a flood of unnecessary messages, blurring your eye. Whatever it is, we are going to show how one can get rid of e-mail spam and slow its frequency rates. The guide below will give useful recommendations with guidelines for the world’s most used e-mail services like Gmail, Yahoo, Apple Mail, and Microsoft Outlook.

1. Mark e-mail as Spam

If an e-mail message has not been put to the “spam” or “junk” folder itself, then users can do it themselves in just a couple of steps. Marking e-mail as spam will let your e-mail service know how to treat the unwanted sender next time. All further messages received from the spam-marked address will be located in the appropriate folder already without your help. Here is how:

Gmail:

1. Open your Gmail and find a message you want to classify as “spam”.
2. Select this message by clicking on the square box next to it.
3. Then, click on the stop sign icon (the one with an exclamation mark) on top.

Yahoo! Mail:

1. Open your Yahoo! Mail and find a message you want to classify as “spam”.
2. Select this message by clicking on the square box next to it.
3. Then, click on the Spam icon on top.

Microsoft Outlook:

1. Open your Yahoo! Mail and find a message you want to classify as “spam”.
2. Select this message by clicking on the square box next to it.
3. Then, click on Junk and Block afterwards.

Apple Mail:

1. Open your Apple Mail and find a message you want to classify as “spam”.
2. Click on it and choose the Junk Mail (trash can with “X”) icon.

2. Delete Spam letters

You can also clear your “spam” or “junk” folder from all the collected such letters. It is always good to maintain your e-mail clean and without trash that clutters even your spam folders. This is how you can wipe it:

Gmail:

1. Open your Gmail and go to Spam on sidebar.
2. If you want to wipe all the spam letters at once, click Delete All Spam Messages Now.
3. If you want to do it selectively, click on the message you need and choose Delete forever.

Yahoo! Mail:

1. Open your Yahoo! Mail and navigate to Spam on the sidebar.
2. Choose e-mails you want to remove and click Delete on top.

Microsoft Outlook:

1. Open your Microsoft Outlook and navigate to Junk Email on the sidebar.
2. Then, click on Empty folder to clear all spam messages.

Apple Mail:

1. Open your Apple Mail and navigate to Spam on the sidebar.
2. Choose e-mails you want to remove and click the Trash can icon on top.

3. Unsubscribe from e-mail campaigns

Many websites offer users to enter their e-mail address in exchange for exclusive content notifications, and tons of other marketing stuff. Over some time, regular users can subscribe to multiple resources that bombard your inbox and spam folder with continuous messages. This can be stopped by unsubscribing to them. Many messages, if opened, have a small gray hyperlink or button “Unsubscribe”. Clicking on it should unsubscribe you from letters you have been receiving for some time. Note that some intentionally malicious letters may use fake “Unsubscribe” buttons to deceive users into downloading malware or visiting suspicious pages. Therefore, remember to always stay on alert!

You can also do the following to unsubscribe to multiple newsletters in Gmail at once:

1. Open your Gmail and type Unsubscribe into the search box on top.
2. Then, click on the Show search options icon on the right end of the search box.
3. Click on Create filter and select checkboxes next to Delete it and Apply filter to matching conversations.
4. After selecting, finish by clicking on Create filter.

This will lead to all previously subscribed messages evaporating from your flood list in seconds. No more letters of such will appear in your Inbox or other folders again.

4. Change your e-mail address and forward it

It is sometimes hard to get rid of all spam in case of an e-mail breach. Receiving unreasonably high numbers of spam could mean your e-mail was leaked to large masses of spamming campaigns grateful to use it. Victims of this can quite easily avoid it by creating a new e-mail address and forwarding incoming e-mails from their old address. Don’t worry, this will not redirect abnormal streams of spam to this new address, but only normal messages you received on your behalf. It is also worth notifying people you had close contact with that you changed your e-mail address, so they do not get scared after receiving a message from an unknown address.

1. First, you should begin with creating a new account for the e-mail service you use (Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, or Apple Mail).
2. Then, log back into your old account, go to Settings and Add a forwarding address. In Gmail, these settings can be found in the Forwarding POP/IMAP tab. Something similar should be in other services as well.
3. Enter the newly created e-mail address and click Next > Proceed > OK.
4. You will then receive a verification message in that newly created address. Make sure you click on it.

If you also want to forward a copy of already existing e-mails, do the following:

1. Go back to the settings page for the Gmail account you want to forward messages from, and refresh your browser.
2. Navigate to Forwarding and POP/IMAP and select Forward a copy of incoming mail to.
3. Choose what you want to happen with the Gmail copy of your emails. It is recommended to choose Keep Gmail’s copy in the Inbox. Click Save changes at the end.

All done and dusted! Now, all new messages tied to the previous e-mail will be sent to your new address.

Summary

It is also nice to have multiple accounts at your disposal for various purposes. One can be set up and used on less important or even suspicious websites, while another for job and personal communication. This might be the best way to filter e-mail content by splitting its amounts down to specific accounts. Unfortunately, we live in a world where e-mail may become a versatile tool for many cybercriminals to disguise malware (e.g. phishers, lottery scams, trojans, etc.) as something legitimate and important. Always keep an eye on that to not let such messages penetrate and damage your system. We hope our guide helped you get rid of unnecessary spam and become more aware of potential threats coming with it.