How to avoid spam mails with Sitejet

In this article, we would like to inform you about spam mails and provide you with tips on how to avoid spam as good as possible with your Sitejet mail. Spoiler: You will probably not be able to avoid spam completely. But you can reduce the impact on your daily work and make your inbox and computer safer when using Sitejet mails.

Table of Content

Basic Knowledge

Spam mails are unwanted email delivered to an inbox. Some might be "harmless" advertising emails, but some might seek to steal your personal information. To avoid these kinds of emails in the future, we recommend adding spam filters in your Webmailer or the email client you use. For an easier understanding, we refer to spam mail in general which covers all types of harmful mails since there are so many different types with different goals. We strongly recommend reading into the different types of harmful mails to avoid any unnecessary surprises. In the past years, there has been a significant increase in spam mails across all services. Depending on which mail provider you are using, you will be affected more or less.

There are also some great tools and ways to help you with that aside from "teaching" your spam filter. Although, with the right tricks you can avoid a lot of spam, it might be wise to install and run antivirus security software frequently on your computer to eliminate "unwanted visitors" or at least be sure you have not been affected negatively by spam!

Simple rules to make your daily work with emails easier:

• There is one golden rule when dealing with spam mails: If it looks like a spam message, it probably is! So, deleting the mail without clicking and downloading anything is probably the best way. Some of these mails contain software that tells the spammer, that this mail is open and active. This may lead to more spam messages. 
• Trust no mail. Always check for typos and other sorts that might give away that this is not from the original sender. Be suspicious! 
• Some malware programs might steal your or anyone's email address and use it to resend messages disguised. If the message appears to come from someone you know, contact them outside your email. 
• Look for phrases that imply urgency - avoid mails with phrases like “Immediate,” and “Act Now” in the email’s title.
• Disable automatic loading of pictures. When you do not know the sender or the content, do not load the pictures
• Should spam slip through your filters, take the simplest approach to suspicious emails and click Delete. 
• Avoid clicking on pop-up messages on your computer. If you are seeing a lot of pop-ups, consider running an antivirus scan.
• Never just open attachments!
• Never just open a link. Always inspect the links first by hovering over the link first or use a program like Email-Veritas (Link (third-party tool)) to verify the link is not suspicious. Copy and paste the link and insert it into the field. If you do not know the sender, ignore the links! 
• Do not just give out your mail email address! Never use your main email addresses for marketing offers, social media or any service that you are not doing business with. These companies might use and sell your mail address. Therefore, you should be cautious when you give out your email address, no matter what the purpose is.
• Unsubscribe from mailing lists! 
• Use secondary mail addresses or a more diverse mail setup with different addresses for different types of services. If you really want to take advantage of online sales or download a file, you might want to create a second email address. Then you can use that email address as a place where you will receive all the spam emails. This way, spammers won’t invade your primary inbox anymore. Or even better: Use a temporary email service (third-party link) for a temporary offer. 
• Hide your email addresses. If your email address is out in the open, spammers will use this opportunity to send you stuff. To stop this, be sure to hide your email address from the public, especially on your social media accounts. Probably, you might want to use aliases for your profiles.
• If you are using a third-party email provider, check out their support and help center for more ways to filter and delete spam. 
• There is a great tool that helps you find out if your mail is compromised. Use Have I Been Pawned (third-party tool) frequently and check if your data has been breached.

Those tips might help you in the future to get rid of a lot of spam. Now we should dive into the possibility to set up a spam filter within the Webmailer of Sitejet! 

If you have more tips and tricks that you might want us to list here, feel free to add your thoughts in the Community!

Set up a spam filter and train it

The first impulse you might get when you receive spam email is to delete or archive them. However, deleting spam emails won’t stop spammers from sending you more emails. If you want to stop receiving spam emails, you should use your experience to train your filter and constantly update the filter with more information. 

• Please log into your Webmailer
• Go to Preferences/Filter
• Set up a Filter and give it a suitable name like "Spamfilter"
  
  

  

• Now, you are able to design and teach your filter as you need it to work: 
  
  

  

• Please make sure the filter is enabled to use it!

• We recommend making it as variable as possible. For the scope try to set the rules that work for you. 

• The single rules section itself makes it possible to define content, sender, and many other variables. No worries, this can get quite large from time to time, but the more filter, the fewer spam mails (hopefully!). You will experience a certain focus from some spam mails in the future - crypto, medicine, dating etc. If you like to make the filter more sophisticated, look for common words in the subject or the body of the mail.

Congrats! You have now successfully set up your filter! Happy Spam-Hunting! If you are facing any issues with the setup, please contact us directly via the support mail! Or even better, feel free to open a new thread in our community!

Become a part of our Community!

Exchange ideas with other web designers about current developments, tips, and tricks and show your favorite sites. Get advice and talk to us about possible features you would like to see on Sitejet. You can join the Sitejetters community here.