SPAM Block on GMail

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Blocking SPAM on GMail sends it either to the SPAM folder or Trash.  Is there a work-around to delete it from the server so we never see it?  I was told that it is not good practice to click the unsubscribe button on SPAM emails.  Any suggestions?  Also, this was covered elsewhere but if you use a reputable service to tell if an email is legitimate please recommend.

Thanks!

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anonymous wrote:

Is there a work-around to delete it from the server so we never see it?

Not a very good one.

You can make an IMAP proxy or some such that’ll just silently get rid of those, but that’ll be all kinds of clunky and nasty.

Or you can put up a dedicated “side scanner” client on some computer somewhere that’ll just go and pull the spam from the server, but that’ll necessarily have a delay so you might still see those spam messages for a short while.

My spouse wanted the latter the other year so I made one of those… It worked over IMAP, so new messages were pulled to the scanner box, and anything classified as spam was moved to a local-only spam folder… which means it was removed from the server. So, I had to check the spam folder regularly…

I don’t know of a reasonably priced service that I’d consider good enough to be worth using for specifically this kind of thing on the client side. Mostly because it’s really hard to tell the difference between unsolicited dishonest targeted commercial mail and actual honest business mail… or distant relatives suddenly trying to reach you. (Both myself and my spouse have relatives who don’t speak or write the same languages as we do, so…)

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Thanks mn- for your knowledgeable response.  The things you mentioned even if they worked I fear would be beyond my ability to enable. 🙂

I have an IMac and use GMail without any client.  Years ago I had a windows computer and used outlook and I believe I could accomplish having SPAM totally blocked from the server.  At least that is my memory of it.  For now I guess having SPAM go to the SPAM folder or trash is the best one can do.

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anonymous wrote:

Is there a work-around to delete it from the server so we never see it?

Not advisable as some not-spam mails are sent to spam by mistake.

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It is not possible to block all spam so you have to try other methods. The simplest is to mark obvious mail as spam in your email client and let the client work it out from there. Unfortunately, not all client spam filters are created equal, some are not very good, others are great.

Getting a new email address and cancelling the one that gets most spam is the best solution.

cheers, Paul

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I think Google has one of the best spam filters around. I hardly ever notice spam in my gmail box and the messages in the spam folder get deleted after 30 days or so. Once in a while a message gets placed incorrectly into spam but those cases are rather rare.

Microsoft (msn/hotmail/live) on the other hand gets it wrong quite often and deletes spam after 10 days.

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