Email Spam Hygiene
Email Spam Hygiene
Email Spam Hygiene
Email spam, sometimes called junk email, grows tremendously over time. Most of this is blocked before users see it. You can help control the amount of spam you receive by understanding what spam is and why it comes to you (more info), and then learning how to manage it with NJIT-provided tools.
NJIT uses Google Apps as a central spam service. All mail is matched against known spam and virus signatures and blocked from reaching user mailboxes if a match is made. Because "spammers" are constantly changing their methods and tactics, some spam can continue to reach your mailbox.
Not every unwanted email is spam!
If you receive unwanted email such as a newsletter, be careful not to mark it as spam! For example, if too many users mark a newsletter, as spam, Google will consider it to be spam for everyone at njit.edu, and it won't be delivered to the people who really want it. Most legitimate newsletters offer an unsubscribe option. If there is no unsubscribe option, you can create a filter to delete it before it reaches your Inbox.
Spam-related Mail Frequently Asked Questions
1. How do I report messages as spam?
2. How do I check my spam folder?
3. How do I make my spam label visible?
4. How do I mark messages as not spam?
If you see items in the spam folder that shouldn't be there:
5. How do I block a message or add it to the whitelist?
Check your spam folder for legitimate emails and mark them as Not spam - they will go back to your Inbox; Gmail will "learn" that these are not spam. If email from previously whitelisted addresses keeps going to your Gmail spam folder, or if you don't want to wait for Gmail to "learn" that it is not spam, you can set up a filter for those specific addresses, marking them as Never go to spam.
6. How do I create filters to automatically add emails to the whitelist or blacklist in the Webmail by Google web interface?
Outlook users' spam is managed by Google. It is recommended that only Gmail's spam filtering be used and to turn off any additional anti-spam or junk email filters within your client. Outlook filtering is turned off by default. For more information, visit How is spam handled for IMAP page.
8. What can I do when I detect spam email?
If a few spam emails are still making it to your Inbox and being downloaded to Outlook, just drag them to your Junk E-mail folder.
9. I don't want to see the spam email in Outlook. What should I do?
If you are using Outlook with an IMAP connection, email that has already been filtered by Gmail to Gmail's Spam folder will be visible in the Junk E-mail folder. If you don't want to see that, sign into Gmail from your web browser, go to Settings >> Labels, and uncheck Show in IMAP next to Gmail's Spam label. What you then allow Outlook to do re: filtering further messages to "Junk" is up to you.
Please contact the IST Service Desk (servicedesk.njit.edu) if you have questions.