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Ask HN: Dealing with SPAM emails after you unsubscribed?

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11–19 of 19 posts

Re: Ask HN: Dealing with SPAM emails after you unsubscribed?

#11

Post by Leftium »

I have two simple email rules/filters that filter out most marketing emails. They should work for your emails.

Even if you don't use gmail, you can still apply the general strategy: https://blog.leftium.com/2023/11/automatic-inbox-cleanup-wit...

While the rules could automatically delete/mark the emails as read, I just tag them with labels and "skip" the inbox so I don't get an email notification.

I can mark all of them as read with a single keystroke after skimming the subject lines for anything important/interesting.

Re: Ask HN: Dealing with SPAM emails after you unsubscribed?

#12

Post by impendia »

If I unsubscribe and still get marketing emails --

Or, if when I click the unsubscribe link, I am prompted to log in to an account which I never created, using a password that I do not have --

Then, with apologies to Francis Ford Coppola, my reaction is to mark as spam with extreme prejudice.

Re: Ask HN: Dealing with SPAM emails after you unsubscribed?

#14

Post by solardev »

pwg wrote: post #7

Name and shame. The large pharmacy chain is Walgreens. I've been very tempted to look up the email for their legal department and send them an explanation of how they are in violation of the CAN-SPAM law.

There's no government left to care about that.

Re: Ask HN: Dealing with SPAM emails after you unsubscribed?

#16

Post by magnetic »

JohnFen wrote: post #10
magnetic wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a reasonable strategy, but I need to figure out a way to delete SPAM emails only . I still need transactional emails to go through, unless I change pharmacies, which isn't impossible to do, but has downsides that may be more painful than having to "Mark As Spam" a couple of times a week.

With the right filter, you could have the best of both worlds. Assuming that the company spamming you has a set format or some standard text in their spam that isn't in their other emails, you could filter based on that.

Yes, I have to figure out the right pattern and block that.

Re: Ask HN: Dealing with SPAM emails after you unsubscribed?

#17

Post by pwg »

solardev wrote: post #14
pwg wrote: post #7

Name and shame. The large pharmacy chain is Walgreens. I've been very tempted to look up the email for their legal department and send them an explanation of how they are in violation of the CAN-SPAM law.

There's no government left to care about that.

While I agree with the sentiment, the hope would be their legal dept. being spooked just enough to rein in the advertising dept. just a bit. Lawyers, in general, do not tend to like risk.

Re: Ask HN: Dealing with SPAM emails after you unsubscribed?

#19

Post by ValtteriL »

I usually just reject mail from the address or even the whole domain on the email server level. This causes them to receive mail rejection notifications and my inbox stays at zero. Zoho workspace makes this easy to do.

I could just block them silently, but reject notifications add to their spam score on email provider level and may help them reconsider their approach.

Curiously, one spammer rotated over 10 similar domains in a span of 6 months as I kept blocking them. Assuming their spam software did it automatically.

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