Have you ever been waiting for an important email only to find out it went into your spam folder? This can be frustrating if you’re waiting on correspondence from someone, but it can also be frustrating (and awkward) for the sender, who is all the while waiting for your response.
While you still want your spam folder to help filter out unwanted messages, it’s important to “safelist” the email addresses you want to go directly into your inbox. And there is a way to keep actual spam emails at bay, too.
What does it mean to “safelist” an email address?
To “safelist,” an email address means adding it to a special list where you mark it as trusted. When you safelist an email address, you ensure that messages from this sender go directly to your inbox instead of getting caught in spam filters. This is particularly useful because sometimes important emails can be mistakenly marked as unwanted spam.
Safelisting is a helpful tool, especially in settings where you can’t afford to miss important messages, like in business or personal communications. By adding an email address to your safelist, you’re telling your email service that you know and trust this sender and that their emails are important to you. This step helps ensure that you always receive the emails you need, including our CyberGuy newsletter.
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Part I: How to safelist email addresses in different email platforms
To ensure that important emails always reach your inbox and don’t get lost in the spam folder, it’s a good idea to safelist trusted email addresses. This requires adding contacts to your email platform’s address book and taking another step to ensure they go to you. Here’s how to do it on different email platforms:
Gmail:
Add email addresses to contacts:
- Google Contacts
- “Create contact”“Create a contact”
- Save.
Safelist spam emails:
- Gmail inbox.
- More.
- Spam
- Not spam
Create a non-spam filter:
- “Settings”“See all settings.”
- “Filters and Blocked Addresses”
- “Create a new filter.”
- email address or domain“From”
“Create filter”“Never send it to Spam,”Create filter
Yahoo Mail:
Add a Yahoo contact:
- Click the Contacts card icon on the upper right corner of your inbox.
- Then, click the three horizontal dots just below it on the right
- Select “Add a new Contact.”
- Fill out the form with the sender’s details, and click “Save.”
Add a filter in Yahoo Mail:
-
- Click the Gear icon in the upper right corner and select “More Settings.”
- Choose “Filters” from the left navigation menu
- Then click “Add new filters.”
- Fill out the form with a filter name and the email address or domain you wish to safelist.
- Click “Save” to activate the filter.
AOL Mail:
Add an AOL contact:
- Log into your AOL Mail account
- Click on Contacts in the left navigation menu
- Tap on the three horizontal dots under where it says Contacts
- Click on Add a new Contact
- Fill out the contact details, and click Save
Create a filter in AOL Mail:
-
- Log into your AOL Mail account
- Click on Options
- Then, click Mail Settings
- Under Filter Settings, click on Create a new filter
- Enter a name for the filter, specify the condition (e.g., emails from a specific email address), and set the action to Move to inbox
- Save the filter to ensure all future emails from this address go directly to your inbox instead of the spam folder.
StartMail
- Log in to your StartMail account: Start by signing in to your StartMail account.
- Access your settings: Look for a settings or options menu, typically found in the upper right corner of the screen.
- Navigate to Safelist options: Within the settings menu, find the section dedicated to ‘Filters’ or ‘Safelisting’.
- Add the email address: In the safelist section, there should be an option to ‘Add’ or ‘Create a new rule’. Enter the email address you wish to safelist.
- Save your changes: Make sure to save or apply the changes to update your safelist settings.
By following these steps, emails from safe listed addresses bypass the spam filter, ensuring you receive important communications directly in your inbox.
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Part II: Why do emails I don’t want in my inbox bypass the spam filter?
It could also be because your email is out there on the internet, and scammers (as well as companies) can find it and add it to a mailing list, without you giving explicit permission to do so. To help minimize this, there are ways to get your data offline.
Use aliases to protect yourself from spam emails
MORE: THE ‘UNSUBSCRIBE’ EMAIL SCAM IS TARGETING AMERICANS
Kurt’s key takeaways
Just like managing your contacts in a physical address book or on your phone takes time, managing them in your email system does, too. But by safelisting emails and using aliases to prevent spam, you’ll get your email right where you want it.
What’s your biggest challenge when it comes to managing your email subscriptions, and how do you address it? Let us know in the comments below.
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