Every day, I open Gmail and I delete all the spam I get from random IDs, as well as the newsletters and promotional emails from brands I never subscribed to. This can be a tedious process because the flow of spam is endless. My inbox often gets cluttered with spam mails and my important emails get lost in this mess. If you also deal with unwanted emails in Gmail, here are some easy hacks that can help you clear your inbox and keep it spam-free.
Mass report and unsubscribe from spam email
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Log on to Gmail and select all the spam emails you want to unsubscribe from (make sure that you don't select any important email ID).
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Click on the i icon at the top and you will be shown the options to ‘Report spam' or ‘Report spam and unsubscribe'.
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Go through the list of IDs listed and if there is nothing important shown here, choose the Report spam and unsubscribe option.
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You will now stop receiving emails from these accounts.
Create filters to detect spam email
- Open Gmail, click on the search box at the top, and type unsubscribe to list all promotional emails.
- Select all of these spam emails, but make sure you cross-check once in case there is a newsletter or mail you actually use in there.
- Click on the three dots at the top and choose Filter messages like these.
- Now click on the create filter option and choose what you want to do with these emails. If you want these emails to be automatically deleted, you can click on the Create a filter option and choose Delete it option.
- You will get a pop-up at the bottom notifying you that a filter has been created. Apart from deleting, you can also choose to filter such emails by applying labels, or marking them as read.
Use a temporary email ID
When you share your primary Gmail ID on random websites, your ID gets shared with several third parties, and you risk getting spam emails. Sometimes spam emails may look legitimate, and you might end up clicking on phishing links that could pose a risk to your personal information.
Instead of using your primary Gmail ID on all websites, you can share a temporary one.
- Visit any website that provides free temporary email IDs, such as temp-mail.org.
- Now copy the temporary email address that's available and use this instead of your actual email ID wherever you like, and you will get the emails here instead of your actual Gmail account. Alternatively, you can create a Gmail ID meant to be used only on such websites.
- In this way, your primary Gmail account will remain safe and spam-free.
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