Everyone’s heard tips on how to manage e-mail, deal with spam and so on – so here are a few other bits of info to help make your e-mail more manageable.
Forwarded e-mail sometimes has a tendency to bypass spam filters
You’ve been a good e-mail user but for whatever reason there are still spams that get thru to your inbox, even though you’ve flagged them a ba-zillion times and they still seem to get thru.
The answer could be you may have forwarded mails that are bypassing the spam filter.
In this instance I’m not referring to e-mail that other people send to you but rather the e-mail that you are downloading in from other e-mail accounts you have.
For example, in Gmail there is the option to bring in mail from other accounts via POP. Other mail services such as Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail also have this feature available. The mail that comes in from these accounts is usually deemed as "trusted" because after all, you did want it there.
If you are currently bringing in other e-mail from other accounts via POP, not doing so may decrease the likelihood of spam bypassing the filter and getting to your inbox.
If you send out mail to over 25 recipients at a time, many mail servers will flag that as spam
The general rule of thumb when it comes to mass mail-outs is that if you’re sending a mail to over 25 different addresses, there is a strong chance several of those you sent the mail to will have it flagged as spam by their mail server.
Some mail providers rely on stronger spam filters (like Gmail and Hotmail) while others operate "by the numbers" to decrease the spam flow. Many ISPs for example will do this. Some have a recipient mail-out limit as low as 20.
The solution to this is either to send out the same mail a few times with the recipient list "broken up" not to exceed 25 at a time, or alternatively use a separate mailing list service.
There are free options for mailing list services such as Yahoo! Groups, MSN Groups and Google Groups. If your recipient list is over 25, I strongly recommend at least checking those offerings to see if they can work for you. Additionally you can also use social media means of lists such as MySpace and Facebook (posting bulletins is essentially the same as mass e-mailing since everyone in the group will get the message).
Sending mail where the recipients are undisclosed
Although this is a simple tip, many people are unaware of how to do this.
When sending an e-mail to multiple recipients, most people usually just put everyone’s e-mail address into the To field. The problem with this is that everyone who receives that mail can see everyone on the list.
Using the cc (carbon copy) field doesn’t help because everyone can still see everyone else’s address.
The way to send a mail to multiple recipients where your address is the only one visible is to do it like this:
- In To, put your e-mail address.
- In cc, leave blank.
- In bcc (blind carbon copy), this is where you put all the other recipients.
If you bcc everybody on the mail you send out and have your address as the only one in the To field, nobody will see the list of addresses. Instead they’ll only see yours because you’re in the To field.
Why do you have to put an e-mail address in the To field? Because it’s required, else the mail won’t send. There must be at least one address there, hence the reason you put in yours.
In Gmail, bcc is done by clicking Add Bcc just below the To field.
In Hotmail, bcc is done by clicking Show Cc & Bcc at the far top right when composing a message. When clicked, the Cc… and Bcc… fields will become visible.
In Yahoo! Mail, bcc is done by clicking Show BCC at the far top right of the To field when composing a message. When clicked, the Bcc: will become visible.
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