Tech Tip: Mark unwanted emails as junk

Emails are a convenient form of communication but unsolicited emails can distract as well as offend email users. Besides cluttering your inbox, spam can link to malicious websites or scam offers aimed at enticing you to give up your financial information. While most email providers try to filter out junk mail, occasionally some creep through the cracks. You can however mark emails as junk manually on both webmail and standalone email clients such as Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird.

Why mark unwanted emails as junk

Why bother marking emails as junk mail rather than just deleting them? Manually marking junk mail in your inbox helps your email provider or email client to learn the types of messages that you consider junk. This will help these messages to be filtered better and sent directly to your Junk Mail or Spam folders – bypassing your inbox in the future.

How to mark unwanted emails as junk

There are different ways to mark a message as junk based on the program or website you are using. You can usually right click on the email title and select the menu item to Mark as Junk or Report Spam. It is also possible to mark an email as junk after you have opened it. There is usually an option at the top of the email window to do so together with other options such as Reply or Delete.