Here Are the Best Ways to Clear Your Gmail Inbox of Spam.
Gmail does a decent job of filtering spam by sending it to the Spam folder, but there are always those marketing emails, newsletters, and other bulk messages that slip into your inbox. Perhaps you accidentally subscribed to a mailing list or intended to receive marketing emails, but now they’re overwhelming. You can delete them one by one, or take action to permanently eliminate spam from specific senders.
Set up filtering to filter out unwanted emails.
Filtering is one of our favorite ways to move spam straight to Trash in Gmail . Select messages from any number of senders in your inbox that you want to filter, click the three-dot menu at the top of the screen, and select “Filter messages like these.” In the pop-up window, click “Create filter” and check the “Delete” box. Be sure to also check the “Apply filter to [X] matching conversations” box . Going forward, messages from filtered senders will automatically go to Trash.
Filter entire domains instead.
If you’re still receiving emails from a sender you’ve filtered, it may be because they use multiple aliases under the same domain. To resolve this, you can set up a domain-wide filter . Go to Settings > See all settings > Filters and blocked addresses and select Create new filter . Add the domain (@[domain].com) to the From field, select Create filter , and check the Remove box.
You can unsubscribe from the newsletter in bulk through the “Manage Subscriptions” section.
You can unsubscribe from emails by clicking the “Unsubscribe” button at the bottom of every email you receive, but this is tedious and poses a potential security risk, as attackers have been known to use these links for malicious purposes . At a minimum, opening the email and clicking any of the links within confirms that your email address is active and vulnerable to attack. Last year, Google updated Gmail with a “Manage Subscriptions” section that consolidates newsletters and promotional emails in one place with one-click unsubscribe functionality. In the left navigation bar, click “More” > “Manage Subscriptions,” find the sender, and click “Unsubscribe” to be removed from that sender’s mailing list.
Please note that Gmail may not show all email lists in this mode – if this is the case for a list you want to unsubscribe from, you can click “Unsubscribe” at the top of the email itself (next to the sender’s address) or use the next step to block the sender entirely.
Use the “Report Spam” button ruthlessly.
If you consistently delete emails from the same senders, report them as spam. This will help Gmail recognize these and similar messages as junk, which will reduce the amount of junk reaching your inbox over time. Select the email and click the “Report Spam” button at the top of your inbox to move it to the Spam folder. Gmail automatically deletes spam messages after 30 days.
Block external images to prevent tracking.
Marketing emails often contain embedded tracking pixels—invisible 1×1 images used to monitor online activity —that let senders know when you open a message. That’s why you should stop opening unnecessary emails and use one of the strategies above to filter, delete, or block them. For additional protection, you can prevent external images from loading in emails unless you explicitly allow it. Go to Settings > See all settings . In the General tab, scroll to the Images section and select “Ask before displaying external images.”
Keep your email address secret and use pseudonyms instead.
The obvious way to prevent spam from reaching your inbox is to avoid sharing your email address altogether. You can create a second Gmail account that you use exclusively for subscriptions, purchases, service registrations, and so on, so that all lists you’re added to are routed directly to a separate inbox. Gmail also offers unlimited aliases through its “additional addressing” feature, so you can easily track where spam is coming from. Alternatively, you can create temporary accounts using “hide my email” services in browsers, password managers, or Apple iCloud .