Email is one of the main communication methods, both for personal use as well as business use. But the daily spam emails can make it difficult for you to get to the important messages and even make you miss essential emails.
The increasing number of spam emails is dangerous for
several reasons. Other than being annoying and cluttering up your inbox, they
can also contain malware that could be installed on your device by any interaction.
Phishing emails are another threat to receiving spam emails.
Even if you cannot get rid of spam emails completely, you
can take a number of actions to reduce them. Here are 5 effective methods to
reduce the number of spam emails and save your inbox.
1. Keep Your Email Address Private
If spammers do not have your email address, they cannot send
you spam emails — as simple as that. So, keeping your email address hidden from
unwanted parties is a proactive and effective method to keep spam emails at
bay.
You might be thinking, well, I am pretty sure no one knows
my email address except for the people I know. There is a pretty good chance
that you might be wrong. Spammers can collect your email address from many
different sources. So, confirming the visibility of your email address on the
Internet is crucial yet simple.
To check your email address visibility, go to Sniff Email — 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.
2. Maintain the Privacy of Your Email Address
If your email address does not exist on the Internet, or you
have taken action to remove it, now it’s time to make sure it stays that way. A
few ways to maintain the privacy of email addresses are –
- Do
not post your email address on social media
- Do
not access your email using public Wi-Fi
- Use
a throwaway email account for sketchy websites
- Limit
forwarding emails
- Do
not reveal your email address on online platforms
3. Train Your Spam Filter
Most people delete spam emails as soon as they reach the
inbox. Even though it de-clutters your inbox, it doesn’t do much to prevent
them from reaching your inbox in the first place. Most email hosting service
providers have built-in features to filter out spam emails. However, you can
increase the effectiveness by training your spam filter to recognise spam
emails better.
How to Filter Spam in Gmail
To report a spam email in Yahoo! Mail, click on the “X”
labeled icon in the toolbar at the top of your inbox located right next to the
Trash icon. You can also mark several emails as spam at once by selecting them
and clicking on the Spam button.
You can block senders on Yahoo! Mail as well. Select the
email from the sender and click on the three dots in the top right corner.
Locate the “Block senders” option from the dropdown menu and select it.
4. Switch Your Email Service Provider
With the increasing spam emails and cyber threats, the go-to
email hosting service providers are sometimes not enough. If you see a rising
number of spam emails in your inbox that your current service provider cannot
block, you might need to switch to a more secure email service provider.
Some of the best email service providers for security are –
- ProtonMail
- Tutanota
- Mailfence
- CounterMail
- Hushmail
These security-focused email providers have powerful and
intelligent spam filters. They also protect your data to keep your email
address secure from spammers. You may also experience a significant decrease in
the number of spam emails just by switching to a new email address.
5. Unsubscribe From Mailing Lists
Not all spam emails contain threats. In fact, advertising
and marketing emails make up about 36% of all spam content. These emails
usually notify you of an upcoming deal or a new product arrival. Even though
these marketing emails are not harmful, they can still clutter your inbox.
However, the good side of these emails are, they are required by law to
include a clear explanation of how the recipient can opt-out of receiving
emails from them in the future.
To unsubscribe from marketing email lists, locate the
unsubscribe button (usually at the bottom) in the email and click on it. It
will usually redirect you to a different webpage to complete the procedure.
Follow the process to stop getting emails from the brand in the future.
Email security is a large part of online safety and privacy.
It is crucial to learn how to reduce the number of spam emails you receive with
advancing automated technology. Follow these simple steps to keep your personal
and professional data safe online.