How to Avoid Unwanted Email

There many ways unwanted email, or "spam," can be avoided.

Unwanted emails find their way into your inbox in numerous ways. These include mailing lists, marketing schemes, automatic email-guessing programs, the sale of your personal information and more. Unwanted email, or "spam," is a nuisance that many email account owners wish to end. These messages can be blocked or prevented from reaching your account through filters, software installation and list removal.

Things You'll Need

• Computer with Internet access
• Email account

Instructions

1. Remove yourself from mailing lists by using the provided links within the advertisements. When you register for websites or fill out customer service evaluations on which you provide your email address, you may have given your permission for companies to add your address to a mailing list. These companies want to provide you with a hassle-free way to end your email subscription, so they often put small hyperlinks at the bottom of their ads where you can click to be removed from the list. Use only these links, and do not ever hit the "reply" button to answer an ad. This will only increase the amount of spam you get from this company.

2. Set up a spam filter in your email account to block messages from certain email addresses that often send you messages. These filters can be set up by either marking the email as "spam" and moving it to the spam folder, or you may have to manually create the filter by entering the address manually. When a spam filter is created, you can direct the ultimate location of a spam message after it is received by your account. You may choose to send it to the spam folder where you can check all messages before they are deleted, or you may choose to send it to the trash folder automatically.

3. Install junk mail software on your computer. There are numerous sites and programs online that you can download to help with spam issues. These programs work in collaboration with your email account to track your email behavior. They take note of which messages you delete without reading, move to the spam folder or have filters against to prevent messages from slipping through the cracks into your inbox.

4. Change your email address. It can be difficult to get removed from mailing lists automatically or try to filter all spam as quickly as you would like. Sometimes companies even completely ignore your request or sell your information to other companies who will use it. If your spam problem persists, set up a new email account with a new username with a new email provider. Make your username hard to guess so that automatic email-generating programs will have a hard time discerning it. This may include using numbers or letter series that do not contain words.

References

• Get Safe Online: Stop Unwanted Email
• Obviously: Do-it-yourself: Stop Junk Mail, Email and Phone Calls
• iVillage: How to Get Rid of Unwanted Email

Resources

• Shareware Connection: Software Listing: Eliminate Junk Email