Reducing inbox spam using Gmail
In order to receive spam, spam distributors need to have access to your e-mail address (obvious enough). The question then becomes, how did that guy selling ‘$UP3R CHEEP V1aGRA pillz’ get your e-mail address?
Many websites (not this one!) require you to create an account prior to posting comments, download files, or access a members area. Unfortunately some of these websites sell their database of emails to spammers, meaning the reason you’re getting that viagara spam ten times a day is that someone sold your information to make a few bucks.
Spammers have additional tricks to get your e-mail as well. Bots routinely crawl websites to grab e-mails. Anytime you post a comment on a website that logs your e-mail, or if you write your e-mail in a form, or if you have your e-mail listed on a contact page, you are at risk having your e-mail being added to a spammers list.
Gmail has some great tricks though which can be used to identify WHERE the spam is coming from. Furthermore, you can easily create rules to trash the spam, and keep your inbox clean.
Method 1
Gmail allows you to add a “+” sign to your e-mail, followed by any string of text you’d like. This allows you to create unique e-mails each time you need to give out your e-mail. So if you are at website called ‘WeSellYourEmail.com’, and they force you to enter your e-mail before downloading a product they make, you would put ‘youremail+wesellyouremail@gmail.com’. Any future spam to this address can be easily recognized, and rules can easily be created to send all incoming emails to this address directly to the trash.
Some websites won’t allows you to add the “+” combo, recognizing it as an illegal e-mail address, in which case you can use the following method.
Method 2
Gmail doesn’t ‘recognize’ dots in usernames. This means that ‘youremail@gmail.com’ is the same as ‘your.email@gmail.com’ and is the same as ‘y.o.u.r.e.m.a.i.l@gmail.com’. Again, this allows you to create unique email addresses whenever you need to distribute your email.
For example if your ‘true’ email (i.e. the one you use to login on gmail.com) is ‘your.email@gmail.com’, you might dedicate the use of ‘yo.uremail@gmail.com’ to websites you sign up for, and ‘yourem.ail@gmail.com’ for contact forms. This will allow you to setup quick rules to mark and delete any spam which will be directed at those email addresses.
Gmail has a very good spam filter to begin with, but along with this method you should be able to eliminate spam entirely. Furthermore, you will be able to identify precisely where the spam came from.
