How to Stop Spam Emails

You’ll never be able to avoid junk or spam emails. Most spam emails can be filtered into a spam folder, but some will slip through. There’s no way to completely eliminate spam from your inbox, but there are ways to reduce the amount you get.

• Causes of Junk Email
• Unsubscribe From Email Marketing Lists
• Block and Report Harmful Spam
• Types of Harmful Spam

Causes of Junk Email

To understand how to reduce spam email, you must first understand the source of the emails, usually spammers, and their methods.

You’ve probably received marketing emails from legitimate retailers and other businesses. Most likely, when you signed up for a service or account, you also signed up for their weekly newsletters, circulars, or email coupons. Spam from a legitimate company is annoying but usually harmless.

Inappropriate Spam Emails Do Exist Usually sent by spammers, not legitimate businesses. Spammers can obtain your email address in several ways, including purchasing (illegal) email lists from ISPs.

Unsubscribe From Email Marketing Lists

As previously stated, commercial ad spam from reputable companies is generally harmless. Here’s how to stop receiving commercial ad spam from a reputable company.

1. Login to your email.
2. Open an unwanted marketing email.
3. Look for an unsubscribe link at the bottom of the message. Only click it if you’re sure you subscribed.

Block and Report Harmful Spam

When it comes to harmful spam, your email provider’s in-house spam filter is your best defense. Because spam emails can get past the filters, they sometimes need help.

You can train your filters to be more selective by blocking their senders and marking or reporting spam emails as soon as they arrive.

Follow these steps to report spam and block specific senders so your email provider knows to filter them.

1. Login to your email.
2. Open the spam message and optionally block the sender.
3. Right-click or select the three dots icon within the email.
4. Select Report spam, Mark as spam, or even Mark as junk to report spam. It varies depending on the email provider.
5. Select Block sender to block a spammer (or any other unwanted email sender). Variable between email providers.

Types of Harmful Spam

Spam can jeopardize your personal data security and computer health by either stealing personal data or infecting your computer with malware.

The most common spam threats are:

1. Money Scams: emails designed to entice unsuspecting recipients into sending money or sharing personal financial information in exchange for a payment.
2. Contest winner spam: Emails “notifying” you of winning a contest you never entered. For most prizes, you’ll need to click a suspicious link or provide personal data.
3. Email spoofing scams: These emails are designed to look like official emails from companies you trust. These emails imitate company logos to trick recipients into sending personal data.
4. Antivirus warning spam: Warning spam emails about malware infections and offers to scan your computer (or other antivirus assistance) to “fix” your computer. When users click on a dubious link, they risk getting malware or worse, giving the scammer access to their systems.