3.1 Using Filters to Eliminate Unwanted Inbox Spam… (Sifting through the garbage!)
After the initial setup phase of an email account, you generally won’t have to worry much about spam.As the time goes on though, you will start to encounter more and more spam messages. It is just the cycle of using email.
Sometimes a website that you signed up for will end up selling the email list for their site (to make some money – and yes, that’s technically not legal). Other times, you may have posted your email address somewhere and it was “scraped” from an automated bot (software).
Regardless of how it happens, you may be getting unwanted messages. The issue is that it’s not always so simple to get rid of those messages, once and for all. This is because if you click on an “unsubscribe” link (if there is one) in the email, you could end up being directed somewhere else that tells the sender that it’s an active email. You could get added to dozens more email lists – and that means more spam and unwanted messages in your inbox.
The good thing is that a lot of email service providers will allow you to create what are called “filters”, to automatically sort messages that you may not want to see.
Finding the filters options for your email provider is different for every one of them, but these can generally be found in the settings or preferences.
In this case, we will use GMail (Google Mail), to show you how to create a filter.- To create a filter, all you need to do is type any keyword, email address, or anything you want to search for, in the search box at the top of your GMail window.
- Before clicking “Search”, simply click the down arrow on the right hand side of the input box.
- It will roll down another small options window and at the bottom right side, you should see “Create filter with this search >>” – Simply click that link.
- From there, you simply select the options (see image below) that you want to apply to these filters. In the case of unwanted messages and spam, you can choose to “Delete it”, as soon as it hits your inbox.
That’s really all there is to it, when it comes to creating filters. The process is similar for every email service provider, but you may just have to do a quick search or help query for your provider, to figure out how to create a filter.
Keep in mind that they may be referred to as something different, depending on who provides your email service to you.
NOTE Another suggestion that is highly recommended if you want to keep your inbox tidy and organised is to make use of “folders” or “labels” (depending on your provider). These are simply sections where you can archive email messages that you receive.
You can also create filters that automatically mark emails from certain people, or with specified keywords and add label them, accordingly. This allows you to make the overall email usage process a lot more seamless and less stressful. In turn, you can focus more on potential out of the ordinary messages and activity.
3.2 Checking Spam and Trash folders Regularly (For Messages Accidentally Caught In Spam Filters)
A lot of email service providers have built-in spam filters set up, to automatically make your experience more seamless and less confusing.These filters might catch phrases that are almost always spam related, or even filter messages based on the email address (sender).
Most times, this is an asset to your email experience. However, occasionally, it will slip up and catch an email message that you actually wanted to receive in your inbox. Things like confirmation emails from forums and other websites, often have this happen.
Other times, it could even be from somebody who you know, who was trying to get in contact with you, but has never emailed you before. Or they may have unintentionally used a “spam” word and because of that, the email provider instantly marked their messages as spam, to save you the hassle.
3.3 So… how do you get around this?
There are a few methods, one of which we will cover more in detail, later on in this course.For now, the easiest way to go about finding these messages is to regularly (once a week or more) check both your spam and trash folders, for your email account.
A quick skim through the sender addresses and the subject lines should usually tell you if it’s something important that slipped through the cracks.
In the event that you find an email that wasn’t supposed to end up in the trash or spam, there is a simple remedy.
First, you can just create a filter with that sender’s email address and tell it to never mark as spam or send to the trash.
You can also add that person to your “Address Book”, which most email service providers will have built in to your email account. A few simple clicks should allow you to easily add that sender to your address book and ensure they won’t end up in your spam or trash again.
If you notice that certain phrases keep hitting email messages with the spam filter and directing them away from your inbox – messages that you want to see – then you can go in and add a filter for that specific phrase or keyword. From there, you can choose for all messages with those properties (keyword, phrase, etc.) never to end up in the trash or spam folders, in the future.
These are just a few simple ways you can be certain that you never miss important messages, regardless of their content and your spam filters.
3.4 Creating An Address Book To Ensure Message Delivery
If you’ve been on the Internet for longer than a few hours (seriously!), then you’ve more than likely heard of the address book.This is just a built-in feature with most email service providers and clients, which allows you to “white list” an email address that contacts you.
When a contact is added to your address book, the white list allows their messages to always get through to you. Additionally, you can also easily refer to their address, or other details and contact them more easily.
These address book details often sync to mobile phones as well, for ease of use and simplicity (as is the case with Google Mail).
We won’t go into detail about how to add contacts to your address book, or to fill out the details, as it differs for most email service providers (in some way).
You can easily just look in the help section for your email account provider and find out how you can start using the address book feature to white list email addresses that contact you frequently.
Be mindful of the security factor that plays a role here in the address book though. A lot of services have protective measures put into place for the address book, but you should always take extra care when adding people to your address book, just in case something negative does happen.
3.5 Frugality With Sharing Your Email Address…
You may be wondering what the point of an email address actually is, if you aren’t sharing it and using it as a communication tool.Well, you definitely are supposed to be using it that way, but it’s important to be careful how you actually use it around the internet.
For instance When you sign up for a random website, forum, or mailing list, you never truly know who may be getting access to your email address at the end of the day. Whilst this may not seem like a big ordeal, it only takes one bad apple to sour the bunch. What that means is that your email address could fall into the wrong hands.
Here are a couple scenarios that could happen:- The database of email addresses signed up for a website (forum, message board, etc.) is compromised. Maybe the passwords were also revealed and “stolen’ by the hacker. Not only could they use software to rapidly check passwords (from the website’s usernames, etc.) against email addresses, but they could also sell your email address to hundreds of spammers – and that means an inbox full of junk.
- A list, or website, that you’ve signed up for has decided to release your email address to other individuals or companies. Whether it’s for monetary compensation, or the company is liquidated (or absorbed), this happens every now and again. This basically spells out an entire array of spam, for your nice clean inbox.
The above are just a few instances in which your email address could end up in a bad place and, even worse, your account details could end up compromised.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that you should never use your email to sign up for different things, or, of course, to share with friends and family, etc. It just means you need to be far more conscious of where you are using your email.
One helpful suggestion is to create another email account, for signing up to different forums and services around the web. Then you can choose to forward the emails from that account to your main email account.
Nearly all email providers will allow you to forward your emails from one address to another, along with a myriad of different forwarding options.
This means you can keep junk email exclusive to a different account and create extensive filters to take care of that, allowing you to keep your main email account free and safe of that sort of compromise.
NOTE If you follow the steps in this course for setting up a secure password and account security question, you shouldn’t have to worry as much about a user name and password database leak.
3.6 Ways to Avoid Your Address Being Sold or Shared…
The topic of creating a secondary account and the main method for avoiding spam and hassles, etc., has been talked about in depth.Let’s assume you don’t always want to have to create a different email account for signing up to various things. Maybe you don’t want to fuss around with any of those tasks.
Let’s say you just want a quick fix…
There are services that provide “throw away” email accounts, or 10 minute accounts. These accounts serve an “in the moment’ purpose of allowing you to use a disposable email, which will expire after a short duration – just long enough for you to sign up and confirm a subscription, to get access to something.
Keep in mind that this is somewhat frowned upon in the marketing world, other niches and in many other situations. Sometimes auto responder services will have built-in mechanisms, to block registration using these kinds of email services. That said, it is important to always remember that and be respectful.
Also make note that a lot of these services don’t provide a password to your account, which is exactly why they should only be used for a quick fix and then discarded – technically, anybody can access them. Save any important information you may receive via email, using these (logins, credentials, etc.). Make sure to delete any information (emails with login details, etc.) from the throwaway account afterwards, as well.
In the event that you would like to use a throwaway email service, here is a list of just a few of the top providers: As mentioned before, make sure that you save any important information that you receive via inbox, to these throwaway accounts. Then also delete the email from that inbox (as anybody could technically access your account, if it’s not expired).
You should really just make a second account (or use your main account) for things like signing up for:- Forums
- Social Networks
- Important Websites
- Semi-Trusted Mailing Lists
- And so on…
Now that you’re familiar with throwaway accounts, using a secondary account (with forwarding, if necessary) and how to filter and manage your inbox, it’s time to move on to additional preventative measures in securing not only your personal information, but also your email accounts and any other account on the web.
Task
Estimated Time: 30 minutes +
Spend some time creating email filters to weed out spam. Also add your frequently used contacts in to your email client’s address book.Worksheet
Estimated Time: 30 minutesHopefully you took in as much of the information in the third module as possible. To find out how well you have really done in this regard, complete the following worksheet.
[Tweet “I just completed Module 3 of the Online Security Course”]
