Stop spam: the methods that actually work

Updated 23 September 2026

Newsletters you never asked for, ads, scams: a flooded inbox wastes time and hides the messages that matter. Here's how to clean it up for good.

Where spam comes from

Your address ends up on senders' lists in several ways:

Sign-ups: shops, competitions, downloads, public Wi-Fi. Pre-ticked boxes can count as consent to receive offers, sometimes from partners.
Resale and sharing of address lists between companies, legal or not depending on the country and the practice.
Data breaches: when a site is hacked, its address database circulates and feeds spam and phishing.
Automatic harvesting: bots crawl websites and forums looking for addresses written in plain text.
Guessing: common addresses (contact@, info@, firstname.lastname@) are tried at random on big domains.

Two families of unwanted mail

Type	Example	Right approach
Legitimate marketing	Newsletter from a shop you ordered from	Unsubscribe with the link provided
Spam and scams	Dubious offers, unknown senders, phishing	Report as spam, never click

In the EU and UK, data-protection and electronic-marketing rules generally require your consent for marketing emails to individuals and an easy way to opt out; in the US, the CAN-SPAM Act requires a working unsubscribe mechanism. Reputable companies honour that link.

Unsubscribing safely

Use the "Unsubscribe" link only for senders you know: brands, services where you have an account.
Many email apps show an "Unsubscribe" button at the top of the message for senders that support it: that's the safest method.
For an unknown or obviously fraudulent sender, click nothing: it would confirm your address is active.
Also go into your account preferences on those sites to untick partner offers.

Let the filters do their job

Spam filters in the major email services learn from what you do:

Report as spam instead of just deleting: each report improves the filter for you and for others.
Rescue legitimate messages from the spam folder: the filter learns both ways.
Create rules for recurring senders: automatically file newsletters into a folder, delete messages containing certain words.
Block a sender who keeps going after you unsubscribed.

Don't reply to spam, even to complain: it confirms your address and may reveal your signature details.

Stop giving out your real address

The most effective method is to compartmentalise:

Tool	Best use
Main address	Family, work, bank, government, important accounts
Alias (`name+shop@…`)	Shops and services you keep: you'll know who leaked your address
Relay address ("hide my email")	Long-term accounts where you may want to cut the relay one day
Disposable address	One-off sign-ups: downloads, trials, public Wi-Fi, competitions

An alias such as firstname+shop@gmail.com lands in your usual inbox. If spam one day arrives on that exact alias, you know which site leaked your address, and a filter on that alias solves the problem.

Protect your address online

Don't publish your address in plain text on a website, forum or online CV: use a contact form instead.
Untick partner-offer boxes when signing up.
Check whether your address has leaked with a breach-notification service such as Have I Been Pwned, and change the passwords of affected accounts.

And if the inbox is already swamped?

Do one big clean-up: sort by sender, unsubscribe from legitimate lists, report the rest and create a few rules. If the address has received hundreds of spam messages a day for years, it may be simpler to create a new main address, give it only to important contacts and services, and let the old one fade into a filtered redirect.

Get a disposable address

Frequently asked questions

Is the "Unsubscribe" button dangerous?

For a well-known brand or a service where you have an account, it's safe and often legally required. For an unknown sender or a fraudulent message, avoid it and report the message as spam instead.

Why do I get spam when I haven't signed up anywhere?

Your address may have leaked in a website hack, been guessed if it's short or common, or been harvested from a web page where it appeared. It isn't necessarily linked to a recent sign-up.

Is a disposable address enough to avoid spam?

It prevents spam linked to one-off sign-ups, since the address and its messages disappear. For accounts you keep, aliases are better suited, because you need to keep receiving messages.