Dear Computer Lady,
I read your column all the time and find it helpful. I am receiving an inordinate amount of unsolicited e-mails.
I unsubscribe, but I still receive e-mails even after the 7-10 days removal time.
Can anything else be done?
Thanks, Rick
Dear Rick,
It is hard to stop the spammers once they get ahold of your email address, and unsubscribing doesn’t do much except tell the spammers that there is a live person at your address, which makes your email address more of a target. Let’s look at what we can do about it.
1. You could set up spam filtering in your email program. You didn’t mention what program you use, so I can’t give you detailed instructions, but a good email program will include some sort of filtering.
2. You could change to a new email address. If you did that, only people that you share your new address with will have it. If you were to go with this method, I would be careful not to fill out online forms with the new email address as that is probably how you got on the spammers list in the first place.
3. You could filter your email through a provider with a great filter already in place. I use this method. I have several email addresses and I have Gmail get the messages from the server. The messages then go through Gmail’s spam filter and I only see real messages unless I want to go check the spam folder, which I rarely do. Gmail even warns me if it finds an infected message on the server.
4. This one is sort of an hybrid of the previous two options. First, create a Gmail email address at: www.mail.google.com and then use the account to collect your existing email address. You have to create a Gmail account anyway in order to filter your email through it, and it would give you time to gradually transfer all your contacts over to the new Gmail address.
Elizabeth
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Elizabeth Boston is a Web designer, Social Media Consultant and managing editor of, “Ask The Computer Lady”.
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