How to reduce inbox spam

We all suffer from the dreaded spam, it wastes so much time, having to click delete, or swipe on our phones, oh it’s so annoying! Where does it come from anyway?
To combat this utter irritation, did you know there’s an easy way to use gmail for your business emails?
This is a cute way of sending emails seemingly from your business account, without compromising its professional appearance, as opposed to using a regular hotmail or gmail address, which can be regarded as unprofessional. This way, people you contact won’t even know the email is actually coming from a gmail address.

Why gmail?

Google Gmail has an email filter, but not just any old email filter. Gmail, from Google has arguably the best spam filtering systems which has worked for us and I’m sure it will for you too.

Step by step guide to set up your spam defence:

If you currently use a local client such as Microsoft Outlook or Thunderbird you should have a POP or POP3 address. To get your e-mail from a POP server follow the steps below.

Retrieving e-mail on Gmail

  1. Create a Gmail account
  2. Once logged in, click the Gear icon in the top right corner
  3. Find and click on Settings
  4. Click Accounts and Import
  5. Find the Check mail from other accounts (using POP3) and click Add a POP3 mail account you own.
  6. Fill out all details: email address, username, password, and POP server address information
  7. Should you have trouble with the smtp setting; it asks you to enter smtp.yourdomain.com/co.uk try replacing the smtp. with mail.
  8. Click back to your inbox because when successful Gmail will retrieving your email from your email server.

Finally to make your email appear as though it coming from your business address:

  1. Click on the gear icon again
  2. Click Settings in the top right portion of the Gmail screen.
  3. Click Accounts and Import.
  4. Add the address under the ‘Send mail as’ section as the default.

And that’s it!

You can still continue to use Gmail as your main (primary) email service. If you prefer to continue using Outlook, Thunderbird or another email client to send and receive your e-mail follow the steps below to retrieve your email from Google:

Retrieve e-mail from Gmail on Outlook, Thunderbird, or another e-mail client.

  1. Click the Gear icon in the top right corner of the Gmail screen and then Settings.
  2. Click Forward and POP/IMAP.
  3. Select Enable POP for all mail or Enable POP for mail that arrives from now on.
  4. Once changes have been made click Save Changes and configure your email client.

 

Typical Gmail POP settings:
Username: Full email address
Password: Your gmail password
Gmail POP server: pop.googlemail.com
Port: 995
Connection Security: SSL/TLS
Authentication type: Normal password

 

Once changes have been made you can configure your email client using the above settings to get mail from Gmail instead of your email server. Additional steps on configuring your POP client can be found on the Gmail supported POP client list.

Corporate email users

If you are aiming to clean up spam for your employees, take a look at Google App; it’s a paid for, albeit not overly expensive option.