Tips For Tuesday: Take Charge of Unwanted Emails
By Marilyn Jaynes, Yahoo Mail Community Manager
Spam email is annoying, which is why we work hard to add new ways to block unwanted emails from making their way into your inbox. Yahoo’s spam-blocking rate is above 99.9%, and we’re proud of that. But there are still those rare .01% instances when junk mail gets past us. Below are some tips that will help you spot, mark and organize spam so you can spend more time in your inbox reading the emails you actually want to be reading. Happy spam hunting!
One of the best ways to spot spam is to check the email address of the message sender. If the address seems suspicious (a mix of letters and numbers, unknown domain, etc.) the safe bet is to not respond and to not click on any links in the email.
Received a suspicious email from “Yahoo” and wondering if it’s legit? Check the body of the email – if there’s a hyperlinked word or phrase (for example, “click here!”) chances are the email is coming from a spam account. Yahoo always lists the link URL (for example, “click here: https://yahoomail.tumblr.com/”) so you can clearly see where you’re clicking. You should also know that Yahoo Customer Care will never ask for personally identifiable information over email, does not have a phone number and will never ask for money for its services.
When you spot spam in your inbox, it’s important that you mark the emails as spam rather than just deleting them. When you mark an email as spam, it improves our ability to spot spam in the future so that it doesn’t make it to your inbox in the first place.
To do this on desktop, tap the Spam button at the top of the email message followed by “Report Spam.” On mobile, you can either long press on the email message from your inbox, tap on the three dots ("...") and click “Mark as Spam”, or mark as spam in the email message itself.
Tip #3: How To Organize Unwanted Email
Feel like promotional emails from brands and business you’ve subscribed to are cluttering your inbox but don’t want to risk missing out on a sale? On desktop, you can create a separate folder, such as “Promotions,” to filter emails out of your main inbox. Just select the “Filter Emails Like This” option in the right-click menu on a message. And remember, if the emails are still bothersome, you can always unsubscribe using the links at the bottom of the email.
To filter emails on the Android app, click on Settings from the Menu/Sidebar, click on Filters and select the account you want to filter. Here, you can add filters or edit the ones you’ve already set up.
We’re constantly working to improve our spam-prevention technologies and policies so we can stay one step ahead of spammers.Feel free to visit our Yahoo Help page or our Yahoo Help community for further questions/assistance.