Fortunately, Gmail spam filter learns from your behavior, so depending on how you interact with emails, it can manage spam better for you. In this post, I am going to list simple tips that will help you minimize spam in Gmail and also make Gmail spam filter better at catching spam emails.
Mark or unmark an email as spam
Starting with something simple, when Gmail makes the mistake of marking or unmarking a wrong email as spam, you can manually fix the mistake. This is important as Gmail will use this preference to manage your future spam and make the filter better. So if you see a spam email in the inbox, you should mark it as spam to send it to the spam folder and future emails as well. Similarly, if an important email ends up in the spam folder, then you should let Gmail know it’s not spam. Here’s how. To mark an email as spam in your inbox, click on the select box next to the email to select it and then click on “Report spam” at the top to mark it as spam.
To unmark an email as spam, go to the spam folder and select the email by clicking on the select box next to it. Afterward, click on the “Not spam” button at the top.
Protect your email address
The best way to avoiding spam is to stop it from reaching your email address in the first place. If you sign up to online websites and services often and/or give your email address on online public pages, then you are bound to receive spam emails. Spammers use multiple techniques to get access to emails and send spam emails. Many shady websites sell your email to these spammers, and spammers can also use software to analyze random pages (especially forums) and look for potential emails. What you need to do is protect your email address from being publicly available. Only sign up on websites that are trustworthy. If you are in doubt, use a disposable email service to get a fake email and keep your real email address clean. You should also avoid typing your email anywhere the public can see, such as forum posts or comments. If you really need to give your email to someone, then directly message the person. The same goes for social profiles, you should hide your email on social media websites too (if possible).
Bulk unsubscribe from spam emails
If you are continuously receiving spam emails from different email addresses, then you can use a third-party tool to bulk unsubscribe from them. There are a bunch of apps for this purpose, but I personally prefer the Unsub Chrome extension. The extension basically creates a filter to move all the emails from a sender to a dedicated label, both current and future emails. It keeps your inbox clean all the time, and if you ever need to see emails from a specific sender; you can just go to the specific label and see them. If you are interested in using this extension, check out my post on how to use Unsub to bulk unsubscribe emails.
Ending words
I will also recommend you to go through your spam folder at least once a week as an important email can end up there. Quite often I receive marketing emails in the spam folder from companies that I care about, usually because they didn’t get my exclusive consent to receive a newsletter. So keeping an eye on the spam folder is always worth it.
