Eliminate most if not all spam e-mail

Eliminate most if not all the spam e-mail you receive by using Google Gmail as an e-mail filter. Gmail has one of the best if not the best spam filtering systems and can be used to filter your e-mails even if you're not using it as your primary e-mail client. We were successfully able to block 99% of the spam we receive daily as shown in the picture to the right. To set this up follow the below steps.

POP/IMAP users

If you're using a local client such as Outlook or Thunderbird to send and receive you're e-mail and not a webmail service. It's likely you have a POP e-mail address. To get your e-mail from a POP server follow the below steps.

1. Create a Google Gmail account if you don't already have one.

2. Click Settings in the top-right portion of the Gmail screen.

3. In the Settings window click the Forwarding and POP/IMAP link.

4. Click the Add button Under the Check mail using POP3 section and go through the steps of getting your e-mail from the POP server. You'll need to know your POP server address such as mail.yourisp.com and the password you use to connect to that server.

After doing this you can still continue to use Outlook, Thunderbird or other local e-mail client. However, instead of getting your e-mail from your ISP or other e-mail server you'll get it from the Google server, which will only download the filtered e-mail. Steps on configuring your POP client can be found on the Gmail supported POP client list.

Webmail users

If you're webmail service that is not providing good enough spam protection many of them will allow you to forward incoming e-mails to your Gmail address. Unfortunately some of these services such as Yahoo mail and other clients do not offer a forwarding option or POP option for free. For services that do not offer a free forwarding option you may wish to consider moving that account to Gmail.

Moving your webmail to Gmail

1. Click Settings in the top right portion of the Gmail screen.

2. In the Settings screen click the Accounts and Import link.

3. Click the Import mail and contacts button and follow the wizard to import all your Yahoo mail contacts, e-mail, and have a notification sent to users that you're moving from one webmail service to another.

Business and corporate e-mail users

If you're trying to clean up your spam for all your employees we suggest looking into Google Apps. A very cheap and effective solution for managing e-mail.

Tip

If you're wanting the e-mail to appear as if it is coming from another address and not your Gmail follow the below steps.

1. Click Settings in the top right portion of the Gmail screen.

2. Click the Accounts and Import link.

3. Add the address under the Send mail as section and that it is set as the default.

Finally, not only is this a great method of eliminating spam, but this can also be a helpful way of backing up e-mail you receive and if you're using multiple e-mail services can be a great way combining all of them into one.