This blog explains what spam emails are and gives tips on how to clear spam emails from your inbox manually and through extensions and applications. You will also find suggestions to avoid spam emails in the future.

• Introduction
• Types of Spam Email
• How to Stop Spam Emails
• 9 ways how to stop spam emails from clogging Your email Inbox.
• Conclusion

Introduction

Have you ever opened your inbox to find a long list of unread emails, only to feel overwhelmed and stressed before you’ve even opened one? You’re not alone. Studies show that the average person spends 28% of their workweek dealing with email. That’s nearly 3 hours every day. That’s a lot of time spent sifting through spam, trying to spot phishing emails, and deleting unwanted advertising.

There’s a good possibility you’ve already been hit with spam. Spam email is irritating at best and potentially dangerous at worst.

Every day, billions of spam emails are sent out, clogging up inboxes and causing headaches for users. A spam email is simply an unsolicited email, meaning an email that you didn’t ask for and didn’t sign up to receive. It’s usually commercial in nature, promoting a product or service. But it can also be things like fake invoices, phishing schemes, and other malicious attempts to steal your personal information.

The fact is, spam email is a huge problem. According to a recent study, over 50% of all email is now spam. That’s billions of emails every day! And it’s not just a nuisance—spam email can be dangerous. Moreover, due to spam emails, you tend to miss important emails. Hence, you must look for a solution.

Fake emails may include false information, click baits designed to trick you into losing money, or even viruses that can infect the system on which you are accessing the mail service. Most mail service providers are capable of automatically identifying spam emails, but they are not as efficient as you hope for.

There are a few things you can do to protect yourself from spam emails. In this blog, we will tell you how to remove existing spam emails from your email inbox and also give tips to avoid receiving spam emails in the future.

You may know what is spam email, but you must know about the types of email spam you get in your inbox and how they can harm your email.

Types of Spam Email

The main types of spam emails are phishing, spoofing, viruses, malware, ransomware, bots, and unwanted advertising.

• Phishing is when scammers try to trick you into giving them your personal information by pretending to be a legitimate person or organization. It is a deception to obtain sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, etc. by disguising as people who are trustworthy entities via online communication.

Email spam comes in many forms, but phishing is one of the most common and most dangerous.  They might send you an email that looks like it’s from your bank, for example and ask you to click on a link and enter your login details. Or they might create a fake website that looks like a real one and trick you into entering your personal information there.

• Spoofing is when someone pretends to be someone else in order to get you to open their email or click on a link.

Email spoofing is a type of spam where scammers send fake emails pretending to be from a legitimate source to get you to open the email or click on a link. This can be done by using a fake name and address, or by spoofing the domain of a trusted website. Spoofed emails often contain links to malicious websites that can infect your computer with malware or steal your personal information.

• Malware is a type of virus that can copy itself and spread throughout your computer system without your permission. Email spam is a type of malware that can copy itself and spread throughout your computer system without your knowledge.

Malware is any software designed to cause harm to your computer, and it can come in the form of email attachments or links. Many people do not realize that they’re opening themselves up to malware by clicking on these links, but it only takes one wrong click to infect your entire computer.

• Ransomware is a particularly insidious form of malware that can encrypt your files and the threat actors can demand a ransom for the decryption key.

• Bots are automated scripts that can be used for good or evil purposes; they’re often used to launch DDOS attacks or distribute spam.

How to Stop Spam Emails?

If you have not been extremely cautious about your inbox, it’s probably constantly bombarded with spam emails. It can be extremely frustrating to have to sort through endless promotional emails and notifications just to get to the handful of important messages. Luckily, there are a few things you can do to help cut down on the number of spam emails you receive.

Here are 9 ways how to stop spam emails from clogging Your email Inbox.

1. Train Your Spam Filter

The best way to avoid spam is to block it before it ever gets into your email inbox. Many email hosting services provide built-in filters that automatically filter out potential spam messages, but you can increase your protection by further training your spam filter to recognize spam emails. This involves manually filtering spam inside your inbox and it is a tool for more thoroughly preventing spam and reporting spam messages to your email client.

For example:

In Gmail, click on the “spam” link at the top of your main inbox window. This will bring up a list of all filtered messages (from senders who are not in any of your contact lists). Click on “Not Spam” next to any message that you believe should be delivered into your main inbox instead of being filtered out entirely. You can also report any emails that you think might be real emails but have been incorrectly filtered out as spam by clicking on “Report Spam” next to any such message.

To set up filters in Gmail:

• Click on the gear icon in the top right corner of your inbox, then click “Settings” from the dropdown menu
• Choose “Filters and Blocked Addresses”
• Click “Create New filter”
• Enter the email address or keyword you want to be filtered out of your inbox

2. Spam Email Addresses Should Be Blocked

Another way is to block the most common spam email addresses. You can do this by adding these addresses to your junk mail filters. Here is how to block unwanted emails.

• To block a specific sender, open an email from that sender.
• To access the settings menu, click the three vertical dots in the top-right area next to the sender details.
• Block [sender] by clicking on it.
• Click the “Report Spam” button below the Block [sender] option if you also want to report the message.

3. Unsubscribe from Mailing Lists

If you are receiving promotional emails from a service or product company, check your inbox for an unsubscribe button at the bottom of any email. While signing up for the brand’s app or website, you have to agree to the terms and conditions.

Subscription to the email is included in the terms, so you may unknowingly subscribe to a newsletter or promotional thread. You can easily unsubscribe from the emails. Reputed brands usually provide an option to unsubscribe.

4. Use of multiple email addresses

Spam emails are often sent to a single account, so it’s important to have multiple email addresses and use them wisely. If you only use one email address, it’s easy for spam bots to find your inbox and fill it with unwanted messages. Ensure that all of your accounts are protected by using different passwords and security questions, too.

• First, use a different email to log into various applications you use. This way, you can use one email address for personal contacts and another one for work-related communications. This makes it easier to separate your personal life from your professional one and helps keep the spam out of your personal inbox.

5. Use Applications and Extensions

Install an application or extension that will help you block unwanted emails before they even reach your inbox. There are some great tools out there, like Mailstrom, Cleanfox, etc., that will help you keep those annoying messages out without having to delete them yourself! Also, there are extensions available in the Chrome store (if you are using Google Chrome) to automatically clean emails from your inbox. You can try “Spam Cleaner for Gmail”.

You can also leverage in-built applications:

• Switch to the Filters and Blocked Addresses tab on the Settings page.
• Select the option to Create a New Filter. The search criteria will appear in a popup box.
• Put “is:spam” without the quotations in the “Has the words” column. This will build a filter for any email that Google’s Spam Algorithm has classified as spam.
• You may remove current spam emails as well as new ones that you may receive. You must choose the option to apply the filter to ‘X’ matched discussions and tick the box. X is the number of emails that fit the criteria that are already in your inbox.
• To build the filter, click the “Create Filter” button. Every email that Google Algorithm has flagged as spam, as well as emails that you have previously flagged as spam, will now be immediately removed.

6. Never reply to a spam email

There are a few key reasons why you should never respond to a spam email. First, doing so only confirms to the sender that your email address is active. This can lead to even more spam being sent your way. You could end up giving away important personal information, like your credit card number or social security number. Additionally, spam emails often contain malicious content, such as links to viruses or phishing scams.

To be specific, do not interact with spam websites that ask you to fill out a survey or offer “prizes” in exchange for your contact information. These sites are designed to trick users into giving up their business email accounts to collect information about them, and then sell that information for profit. If a website looks shady or has an unfamiliar URL (the part at the end of the web address), don’t click through it! This is one of the best ways to avoid spam emails.

Use two-step verification when signing up for any kind of digital service that requires an account. This ensures that only someone who has physical access to your phone can log into your account on their computer—and it makes it much harder for hackers to break into your account without knowing both parts of this security measure!

7. Read the terms and conditions.

Many people don’t read terms and conditions, but they must! You might think that agreeing to a website’s terms and conditions implies that any spam they send is your fault—but it’s not. If you do not want to receive it, just don’t sign up for anything in the first place! And if you do sign up with your email account for something and start getting spam, later on, you can always unsubscribe or change your account settings.

Before signing up for any service or downloading any software, read the terms of service (TOS) carefully. This is where companies will explain how they’ll use your personal data, what will they do if they change their TOS or close down the service, and more. So, if you do not see anything about spam in there before signing up, that might be a sign that something isn’t right!

Most people don’t read the terms of service for anything, but if you’re online, it’s important to at least glance over the terms and conditions of the sites you use. This way, you can familiarize yourself with the policies that govern your use of their services. If any sections seem unfair or ambiguous (which is common), ensure to contact the site and ask them what they mean by their policy.

8.    Use phone numbers.

You might usually log in to a lot of applications using your email. Hence, you expose your email, grant permission to spammers, and receive spam emails. However, on many sites, there is an option to put in a phone number instead of an email address. This way, you give more privacy to your email inbox, but you may receive spam SMSs. In this case, you need to prioritize which inbox you need to reduce spam in – SMS or email.

It can also be said that we usually receive important information via email. If you feel the same, using phone numbers can be a good option to log into websites and apps.

9.    Protect your email from prying eyes.

Check your Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn account settings to ensure your email address is only available to you and your friends. This is especially important because fraudsters or bots can easily obtain your business email account through public pages such as social media accounts or personal websites.

You might have seen many Facebook accounts with email addresses in the about section. This can be kept private from the settings. If for business or other purposes, you want your email to be visible and accessible, it is best to use a secondary business email.

Check the privacy settings on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to ensure your email address is only visible to people you know and trust.

Conclusion:

We rely on emails for communication at work, home, and play. But it can also be a huge time sink, dealing with unwanted advertising, ransomware, and bots. Spam has been a menace to internet users from the time it was established. There were various ways in which spam could be kept away from you, but with time, spam has evolved and it takes the form of more sophisticated emails. Hence, spam emails are more common than ever now.

But do not worry, there are plenty of ways to protect yourself from these threats.

Your privacy and safety are in your hands. There is no bulletproof way to stop every spam email. But what we need to do is be smart. Use all the tips to avoid spam emails mentioned in the blog and your risk is minimized. Remember, the Internet has created an open channel for spammers to advertise their services. While some may see spam as a minor annoyance, its consequences can be serious.