As part of our What the Tech Q&A series, technology contributor Vince Lattanzio offers his answers to viewer's burning technology questions. If you'd like to rack his brain, send in your question here.
I received this question from Sandra about her relentless junk email:
Every morning when I turn on my smartphone, I receive at least a dozen unsolicited junk emails with no message content. I do not open them; months ago I did and tried to unsubscribe -- all looked the same! Lately, I continue to receive them except now rather than one from, i.e., dish promotions, I get a double one! All time stamps are around 3:45 a.m. So my morning usually begins with deleting 24 emails from my iPhone.
What should I do? Thank you for your assistance.
Sandra,
Contrary to popular belief, simply marking an email as spam doesn’t mean you will stop seeing it delivered into your inbox every morning. Instead, the email server moves just that individual message to the spam folder. The email system then also adds the sender's email address and domain (i.e. @nbc.com or @comcast.net) to a filter database.
Now as you and other users mark more and more of the same or similar addresses as spam, the database continues to record the information. When these addresses then reach a threshold, they're caught by the system and deleted before it even reaches your inbox.
The in-between time can be frustrating, but there is something you can do automatically send those messages into your spam folder -- by setting up a personal filter.
To do this, log into your Comcast.net email account (the service used by Sandra) and then click on the Preferences option in the black toolbar near the top of the page. Once there, click on the Email Filters option on the left side. To set up a new filter, choose New Filter and then fill out the information in the pop up window.
(Comcast Corp. is the parent company of NBC Philadelphia and NBCUniversal)
If the email addresses have a unique domain name -- not a common one like @comcast.net, @gmail.com or @aol.com -- you can set up the filter so that it will send any email from that domain directly to the Spam Folder. You'll want to be careful though, because emails from legitimate senders on that service will also wind up in there.
Otherwise, you can just add individual email addresses to your "personal spam filter" so they go directly to the folder.
The great thing about these personal filters is that they work on the server, so you should stop seeing those emails on your iPhone. They basically go away before they even get to your inbox.
And for those of you following at home -- if you use another email system, there should be a similar feature offered by your service. Check out the service's help section for complete directions.
Keep up with Vince on Twitter @VinceLattanzio and get the latest news updates from @NBCPhiladelphia.
