Got spam? We all do, to one extent or the other. And because of that, there are a lot of products that can help you better manage the spam that hits your Inbox.
Would you like to know how to get and use one of the best anti-spam devices available? Would you want to know even more about it if I told you that it would not cost you a cent?
Would you be surprised if I told you that Gmail, Google’s email service, is the answer — even if the spammed account isn’t a Gmail account?
Here’s all you need to do:
- First, you’ll need a Gmail account. You can get one by going to https://mail.google.com/mail. Once there, click on the big “Create An Account” button on the right side, towards the bottom of the page — and follow the steps.
- Once you have your Gmail account, log in to the email account that is getting a lot of spam and set up what’s called an “auto forward” rule. Different email providers have different ways of doing this, so I can’t really tell you “how” to do this. If you run into problems, just ask your email service provider. You’ll need to do this so the email from your current account gets forwarded to the Gmail account you just created.
- From now on, you’ll get your email from your Gmail account. You can set things up there so that it looks like email is still being sent from your other account and can even have recipients of your email still send email to your original account. You can even download it to your desktop email client (such as Outlook or Thunderbird), or just read and process your email using the Gmail web interface.
So what’s the big deal? Once you start doing this, you’ll notice a lot less spam in your Inbox. That’s because Google’s spam filters catch a lot of it — in my opinion, they seem to catch a lot more than some of the other free email providers — and put it in your “Spam” folder, leaving less stuff in your Inbox to deal with.
One person I know of — he runs an online business and has to publish his email address for his customers, so a lot of spammers think they have the right to send their useless junk to him (they don’t) — started doing this. He said that over 3,000 emails ended up in his Gmail “Spam” folder in less than a week and he estimates that he now saves at least 30 minutes a day because he no longer has to deal with spam.
I like Gmail for a lot of reasons, and this is another reason to like it. Until the day comes when spam disappears, let’s hope that Google can continue to provide one of the best anti-spam systems available at a price that literally can’t be beat!
