Community Forums

John Harrelson · 02-22-2008, 08:57 AM

I have a couple of friends who think that the only way to use email is to forward everything they receive on over to me...

I have talked to them many times and asked them to please not send me any forwarded anything... no matter what it is about...

but those people don't seem to understand that I am not interested in their chain letters and religious crapola..

Most of it is religious junk or the chain letter crud that say I have to forward to a hundred friends or I will die a terrible death.. (you know the type of letters I'm talking about)

I opened a G-Mail account and told those couple of people that my old email account was gone and I only had a G-Mail account.. hoping to keep that forwarded stuff out of my normal email system..

That part worked... I now have my old accounts free of their forwarded junk because they now send everything to the G-Mail account...

BUT ...... G-Mail does not work .... !!
G-Mail has no way to block incoming junk mails...

I have made a filter,...several of them, actually.... and none of them work.

The junk mail still comes into my regular "IN BOX" and I have to click on ... "REPORT SPAM"... which sends the junk mail to the Spam folder...

BUT ...... I then have to open the Spam Folder and click on "DELETE FOREVER" ....

<span class="ev_code_red">Does anyone know how to make G-Mail completely "BLOCK" incoming emails so that they don't even get to my computer at all ???</span>

Both JUNO ..(my primary account) and YAHOO ..(my secondary account) have the ability to block any email from getting into my email system at all..
<span class="ev_code_blue">once an address is blocked, that email never, ever again, appears anywhere in my email system.</span>

Does G-Mail have that capability or did I waste my time opening a G-Mail account ?

If it does ... can some of you please walk me through the process of setting up G-Mail so that it stops unwanted emails from appearing anywhere in the G-Mail system ?

Thanks for any help you G-Mail folks have...

John

John Harrelson · 02-22-2008, 08:57 AM

I have a couple of friends who think that the only way to use email is to forward everything they receive on over to me...

I have talked to them many times and asked them to please not send me any forwarded anything... no matter what it is about...

but those people don't seem to understand that I am not interested in their chain letters and religious crapola..

Most of it is religious junk or the chain letter crud that say I have to forward to a hundred friends or I will die a terrible death.. (you know the type of letters I'm talking about)

I opened a G-Mail account and told those couple of people that my old email account was gone and I only had a G-Mail account.. hoping to keep that forwarded stuff out of my normal email system..

That part worked... I now have my old accounts free of their forwarded junk because they now send everything to the G-Mail account...

BUT ...... G-Mail does not work .... !!
G-Mail has no way to block incoming junk mails...

I have made a filter,...several of them, actually.... and none of them work.

The junk mail still comes into my regular "IN BOX" and I have to click on ... "REPORT SPAM"... which sends the junk mail to the Spam folder...

BUT ...... I then have to open the Spam Folder and click on "DELETE FOREVER" ....

<span class="ev_code_red">Does anyone know how to make G-Mail completely "BLOCK" incoming emails so that they don't even get to my computer at all ???</span>

Both JUNO ..(my primary account) and YAHOO ..(my secondary account) have the ability to block any email from getting into my email system at all..
<span class="ev_code_blue">once an address is blocked, that email never, ever again, appears anywhere in my email system.</span>

Does G-Mail have that capability or did I waste my time opening a G-Mail account ?

If it does ... can some of you please walk me through the process of setting up G-Mail so that it stops unwanted emails from appearing anywhere in the G-Mail system ?

Thanks for any help you G-Mail folks have...

John

Rick 2005 Dolphin 5376 · 02-22-2008, 09:50 AM

Well, when it comes to Gmail, you get what you pay for. I have an account as well and I finally just stopped using it. I pay Yahoo 29.00 a year to be able to "pop" my Commspeed.net address in to Yahoo along with my yahoo address. At times junk mail is everywhere but for the most part, I don't get much. As long as your friends are in your contact book, you are going to get their junk mail forwards and short of telling them to stop or removing them from your contact list, it is what it is.

John Harrelson · 02-22-2008, 10:50 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by BillArf:
<span class="ev_code_BLUE">How can you blame GMAIL for your friends sending you email you do not want.</span> </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

<span class="ev_code_RED">Bill, I think you need to re-read my post... I did not "Blame" G-Mail for anything..</span>

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"><span class="ev_code_blue">"Do this: Skip In box, Delete it" this filter works great</span> </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

<span class="ev_code_red">I tried this and it did not solve the problem.. all mail still goes into the "IN BOX"</span>

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"><span class="ev_code_blue">You also can set up a filter that says if a specific emailer has attached something to his email to immediately delete that email. This will let his other emails without attachments get through.</span> </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

<span class="ev_code_red">I tried that also... no dice.. all mails still go to "IN BOX"..</span>

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"><span class="ev_code_blue">As for Yahoo mail. No better then GMAIL and you pay for it. NOT!</span> </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I don't pay (directly) for my Yahoo account because it is included in my AT&T/Yahoo DSL package.... (unlimited use for $19.99)

and yes, Yahoo is better than G-Mail, because it can be set to Block" any emails I tell it to.
I never even see them, therefore I don't have to go through the hassle of deleting them.

The only reason I ever set up a G-Mail account was to provide a place for garbage mail to go to and as a back-up email account in case something were to happen to my other two accounts.
I never use G-Mail for correspondence of any type, because it does not measure up to the higher standards of Juno and Yahoo..

If I can't figure a way to totally block selected addresses from showing up in the G-Mail system, I guess I am no better off than before.. and may as well cancel the Google account..

But thanks for trying to help Bill, I do appreciate your effort,

John

John Harrelson · 02-22-2008, 11:38 AM

Me either Bill.... wish I did... I tried everything several times and nothing seems to work...

Oh well, maybe I'll just delete the G-Mail account and tell my friends to send their emails to my Yahoo account...
at least there I can set up my Yahoo mail to block their addresses from entering my email system..

Thanks again for trying to help,
John

Bill Adams · 02-22-2008, 01:09 PM

John,
Have you setup your G-Mail account to download to an Outlook or Outlook Express type account on your computer? If not, you should give that a try as you certainly would have all the flexibility you want to block any e-mail you like from coming onto your computer.

John Harrelson · 02-22-2008, 01:35 PM

Thanks Bill ... I think I may have found the problem... not sure yet,,... maybe..

When going back over the filters I had created, I noticed that I had typed a "Comma" in between "gmail" and "Com"... instead of a "period" ..

I'm thinking maybe the system did not recognize my address as a proper address because of the comma and therefore the filter did not work..

I replaced the comma with a period and now I will wait for my friend to send more emails to see if that indeed was the problem...

If not, I'll be back whining and crying in my beer ...

Thanks for the help,
John

Bill Adams · 02-22-2008, 03:20 PM

It is an absolute certainty that nothing would be able to properly process your e-mail address if the e-mail address is not correct. Putting a comma where a period belongs would kill any possibly of the filter working just as much as if you had put .net instead of .com.
Be sure to let us know if that corrected the problem.

John Harrelson · 02-23-2008, 11:46 AM

"What a revolting development this is" as the cartoon character would say ..

I woke up in the middle of the night with this thought running through my head....

If I finally figured out how to block those unwanted emails ....

HOW WILL I KNOW ??

Because if they are being successfully blocked, that explains why I have not seen them in my incoming emails today...

But suppose the reason I haven't seen any today is because my friends have not sent me any emails today ... ?

GROAN......

heh heh heh heh ....

Thanks for all the suggestions and help everybody... so far ... so good...

John

ROMAD · 02-23-2008, 06:02 PM

John, One other suggestion, if your friends email address is in your address book (contacts/favorites or what ever g-mail calls it)the spam filters will usually allow them through to your in box. I use Netscape and had a similar problem with one of the folks in our WIT group. Once I deleted his email address from my contacts list all of his forwarded emails wered filtered and started going to the trash where they needed to be. Good luck.

John Harrelson · 02-23-2008, 07:36 PM

Thanks for the tip Gene... I did as you suggested..
John

SeeTheUSA · 02-24-2008, 04:10 AM

I had a similar problem with one acquaintance sending me all of those chain letter, must forward and respond junk messages. My solution worked very well and required no modifications to any e-mail accounts . . .

I just told the person,

<span class="ev_code_RED">"Don't EVER send me ANYTHING again!"</span>

It worked very well --- no confusion with commas or periods or such.