Spam emails are irritating, but they’re a lot less annoying when you don’t get them every day. Unfortunately, for many Gmail users, spam emails are a constant presence in their inboxes. Every time we open our Gmail, it feels like new spam messages are waiting for us. Even worse, spammers keep getting more and more creative with the types of junk they send you.
You might get ads for dating sites that aren’t interested in you. You might read messages about a vacation package that can be yours if you reply within 24 hours to claim your “special offer”.
With so many different kinds of spam out there, it can be hard to know which ones to trust and which ones to avoid. If your Gmail account is overloaded with spam or just too much of it to handle, here are some tips on how to stop spam emails from coming into your inbox permanently and never again.
Table of Contents
- Block emails with the spam label
- Block emails from specific senders
- Use Google’s spam-fighting tools
- Stop emails from specific domains
- Only allow emails from your contacts
- Block emails with keyboard shortcuts
- Automate the process with a tool like GMD
- Conclusion
Block emails with the spam label
One of the most annoying spam emails is the one that promises you a huge amount of money if you just lend them a small amount of money upfront. Gmail has a spam label that can be applied to these emails, along with many others.
If you see a spam message in your inbox, select the message, click the Down arrow menu next to Reply, and then select “Spam”. You can also select the message, click the Down arrow menu and select “Mark as spam”. This will put a “Spam” label on the message so Gmail’s spam filters will be able to recognize it as spam.
If you receive a message that you know is not spam but mistakenly gets marked as such, click the “Spam” icon beside the message to remove the label.
Block emails from specific senders
If you receive a message from someone you know is not a spammer but they send you spam, you can block the sender from sending you any more emails.
To do this, select the message, click the Down arrow menu and select “Block”. To unblock the sender, click the Down arrow menu next to “Blocked” under the “Settings” heading and select “Unblock”.
Use Google’s spam-fighting tools
Google has its own spam-fighting tools that are used to automatically recognize and block spam emails before they ever make it into your inbox.
Google uses a variety of factors to determine whether an email is a spam, including the content of the email, the sender’s IP address, and the words used in the subject line.
If you receive a spam email that Google has identified as such, you will see a yellow “Spam” button beside the message in your inbox. You can click the button to mark the message as spam, which will help Google further identify and block similar messages in the future.
If you receive an email that Google has incorrectly identified as spam, you can report the sender as not being spam. To do this, select the message, click the Down arrow menu and select “Not spam”.
Stop emails from specific domains
Some spam emails you receive come from a specific domain, like a domain owned by a dating site you’ve never heard of. To stop these emails from ever reaching your inbox, you can add the domain to your Gmail contacts as a spammer. Select the message, click the Down arrow menu and select “Add [domain name] to spam”.
If you want to unblock a domain, click the Down arrow menu next to “Spam” under the Settings heading, select “Manage spam” and then click and select “Unblock [domain]”.
You can also report the domain to Google as a false positive to help prevent the domain from sending emails to other Gmail users. To do this, select the message, click the Down arrow menu and select “Report [domain] as false positive”.
Only allow emails from your contacts
You can stop any emails from reaching your inbox that comes from a source that isn’t in your contacts list. To do this, select the message, click the Down arrow menu and select “Mark as spam”.
To allow the sender to reach your inbox in the future, select the message, click the Down arrow menu and select “Not spam”.
Block emails with keyboard shortcuts
You can use keyboard shortcuts to mark an email as spam or to unblock an email you mistakenly marked as spam. To mark an email as spam, select the message, hold down the Shift key and hit the “Spam” button at the top of your inbox.
To unblock an email you mistakenly marked as spam, select the message, hold down the Shift key and hit the “Not spam” button at the top of your inbox.
To block all emails from a specific sender, select the message, hold down the Shift key and hit the “Block” button at the top of your inbox.
Automate the process with a tool like GMD
Some spam emails can be really hard to identify because they’re coming from legitimate sources (but they’re not actually legitimate). With these types of emails, it can be really hard to use the tools we talked about above to get them out of your inbox.
To deal with these emails, you can use a spam filtering tool like GMD, which offers various features to help you keep your inbox clean. GMD will automatically scan your inbox for spam, viruses and other threats and then quarantine those emails so you can focus on the emails that matter.
Conclusion
Spam emails are a constant nuisance, but they don’t have to be. Whether you block emails from specific senders or domains or mark them as spam, you can take control of your inbox and get rid of annoying and unwanted emails for good. With the tools and tips above, you can stop spam emails from ever reaching your inbox again.