Receiving loads of spam and unwanted emails can overwhelm email users in many different ways. Firstly, they clutter your inbox. Second, junk emails contain malicious threats, such as malicious attachments and links to steal personal data and harm your device.

Before getting into how to stop unwanted emails, let’s go through the most common types.

• Spam: Usually sent in bulk for promotional purposes, spam or junk emails are the most common unwanted emails.
• Phishing email: Phishing emails are a form of spam email designed to impersonate a trusted source or a legitimate marketing email to manipulate the recipient into sharing personal information or installing malware on their device.
• Involuntary subscriptions: Sometimes, apps and websites use tactics to include you into their email marketing lists unknowingly. These are typically marketing emails promoting new features or offers.
• Unwanted personal emails: These are emails from particular senders that you’re not interested to hear from. It might be stressful for you to receive emails from them over and over, or they just clutter your inbox — either way, these are unwanted emails.

How to Stop Getting Spam Emails

Limit your email address visibility

Go to Sniff Email to check your email address visibility on the web. Sniff Email is an online platform dedicated to finding out if your email address exists on the Internet. Enter your email address in the search field and click fetch to find out if your email address exists on the web within a few seconds. Based on the results, you can take appropriate action to remove it.

Report spam

Instead of deleting the spam email from your inbox, make use of the reporting option to prevent the spammers from reaching your inbox. It trains your spam filter to block email from the same sender or similar emails in the future.

Unsubscribe

If it is a legitimate marketing email, you can stop receiving any email in the future by clicking on the unsubscribe link. Usually, you will find the unsubscribe option at the bottom or top of the email.

Avoid interacting with spam emails

If you receive a suspicious email from an unknown sender, do not interact with it in any way. Don’t open the email because it can communicate that your email address is active to the spammer. Most importantly, never reply to a spam email even if to ask them to stop contacting you because it will only further motivate the spammers.

Use a disposable email

If you need to sign up for new websites or apps but don’t trust them, use a disposable email account instead of your original address. It helps to keep you and your contact list safe and doesn’t let your email address spread over the Internet.

Can You Block Spam Emails?

A great option to stop spam emails from reaching your inbox is to block them. However, the process is different for each email service provider. So, here is the step-by-step guide on how to block unwanted emails in the most popular email services.

How to Block Spam Email on Outlook

1. Go to the inbox and open an email from the unwanted sender you want to block.
2. Select Menu > Junk Mail from the Outlook menu bar.
3. Click on Block Sender to add the address to the Outlook block list.

How to Block Spam Email on Gmail

1. Open your Gmail account.
2. Go to a message from the sender you want to block.
3. In the top right corner, click on the icon with three dots.
4. From the dropdown menu, click on Block.
5. You will typically find an unsubscribe button next to the sender’s address if it’s a marketing email. Click on it to prevent receiving any messages from them in the future.

How to Block Spam Email on Yahoo

1. Open the Yahoo web app.
2. Open an email from the sender that you would like to block.
3. Click on the three dots at the top of the email.
4. Select Block senders from the dropdown menu.
5. A pop-up will appear to Block all future emails and Delete all existing emails from the sender. Check both boxes and click Ok.

How to Block Spam Email on Apple Mail (macOS)

1. Open the mail application on your Mac.
2. Open an email from the sender you want to block.
3. Hover the cursor around their name in the From
4. Click on the downward-facing arrow.
5. Select the block contact

We all hate spam. Spam emails are annoying; they clutter up the inbox, and they are dangerous. Therefore, knowing how to block them on your email account is crucial to keeping your inbox neat and clean. Click here to learn more ways to reduce spam emails in your inbox.

Photo by Nadine Shaabana on Unsplash