Have you ever wished you knew some ways to stop your friends from spamming you without being rude? Many people open their email with caution, trying to avoid phishing scams and potentially harmful viruses. However, when the email is coming from a friend, it can be tempting to open it. When it gets to the point where your inbox is becoming cluttered with FWD after FWD and other spammy types of email, enough is enough!
Not only are these unwanted emails taking up valuable space in your mailbox, they may also be exposing your computer to risky things. So how do you go about asking your friend(s) to please stop sending that type of email without offending them or hurting their feelings? Try using the 4 tips below:
1. Work Made Me Do It!
If you happen to have an email account that you primarily use at work, just mention to the friend that you should not really be receiving non-work related emails. In many cases, this may actually be true so you wouldn’t even have to lie. Many workplaces frown on accessing personal email accounts while at work, or from having messages unrelated to work sent to the company email address. Some businesses even monitor the computer use of their employees, which gives you the perfect reason.
2. Send A Polite Little Email Of Your Own
You could solve the problem by sending an email message to all guilty parties who love to send along every FWD they received. Inform them that your computer was put at risk by a recent email and that you would still love to receive personal correspondence from them, however, you will no longer be opening FWDs and attachments. Ask them to please refrain from sending any further email of that type, because you will simply have to delete it.
[Recommended reading: E-mail Etiquette That You Are Expected to Know]
3. Switch Email Accounts
You can use either of the above reasons, along with switching to another email account, if necessary. Either use the new email account as your new primary account, and have people continue to send the forwards, joke of the day, and other silly types of email to the old account which was already becoming cluttered with them anyway. Or, you could try to salvage your current email and have the “junk” emails sent over to the new email account. Either way, it still gives all of your friends, especially the ones that feel bad luck will find them if they don’t forward the email to twenty people in the next five minutes a place to contact you.
4. Block As A Last Resort
Obviously, no one wants to offend their friends. However, if they continue to disrespect your boundaries or requests regarding this matter, you may need to block them from sending you any further emails. Unfortunately, this also means that if they send something of importance, like a personal email or photographs, you will no longer receive those either.
[Suggested reading: A Beginners Guide to Filtering Spam]
Conclusion
By explaining to your friends that you simply no longer have time to read dozens of FWDs each day, or that you fear your computer, or possibly your job might be at risk over them, most people will respect your desires and stop sending this type of email to you.
Thoughts, suggestions, comments? Let us know.
[Image credit: Stuart Miles, freedigitalphotos.net]
Hi Peter !
You have mentioned excellent points ! Apart from these points , we can try adding a filter in our email accounts that will automatically delete the spammy email that was sent through a particular email address , Thanks for sharing these tips with us .
-Pramod
Yeah that will work.
Years ago I had a friend that would forward all kinds of junk. Sometimes two or three per day. I just delete those things now. I also try to be a little more careful and cautious about who I give my email to. Also why I have more than one email. I have one email address only a handful of people know, and so far it has been very clean without any forwards or junk for several years now.
I don’t know do people really think forwards are that great and something their friend really wants or can’t live without? I know I don’t want any of them even from friends or family.
I had a friend who used to send me those emails that asking people to forward them to 10 or more people so that I will become lucky or get rich or some sort. Gosh it was so annoying that I had to block him after a friendly reminder didn’t work!
Hi Peter.
Your post is exactly what i need.
I really have a lot spam and most of them come from my friend, Some friends i just have to block them but some i can;t do that so i continue receiving their spams. This gonna help me a lot,
Thanks for your information.
Stephan Wu
Nice tips Peter. It becomes very much annoying sometimes when your friends keep forwarding you unnecessary messages or mails. Your suggestions are very much acceptable without hurting ego of your friends. Replying them politely is the best way to deal with such a situation. Thank you for sharing the post.
Being nice sometimes won’t cut it. You just have to block them in the end. LOL
Hello Peter!
Thanks for the nice tips.
Please let me know –
How to block someone’s emails permanently and temporarily.
And which is of the following is the best way to stop someone’s regular shared posts notifications:
1) By removing him from friend circle
2) Muting his notifications
3) or someway else
Thanks and regards,
Sushil Saini
Depends on which email service you are using, different email services have different ways in blocking. You can try to Google. As for social media post sharing notifications, if you feel they are annoying, just mute them. You don’t want your friends to label you as “impolite” by removing him/her from your friends list anyway, right?
Sorry bro. But even I indulged in such behavior in the past. Won’t do more such forced shares in the future xD
I love this article! I just ran into the same issue with friends spamming me all the time. I will use this tips asap. Thanks for the informative information.