How to Stop Spam Emails (and Keep Them From Coming Back)

On By SaneBox TeamIn Other

Your inbox has a squatter problem.

You delete ten “You’ve won!” emails before breakfast, and by lunch there are twelve more. It isn’t your imagination. According to Kaspersky’s 2025 telemetry, spam made up 44.99% of all global email traffic in 2025. The same report found a 15% jump in malicious attachments year over year.

The reason it’s getting worse is simple: spam got easier to produce. Generative AI lets anyone write thousands of convincing emails in minutes, which is why we called it The Great Inbox Flood. As Kaspersky’s own anti-spam expert put it, AI is “enabling attackers to craft convincing, personalized phishing messages at scale with minimal effort.”

The good news? You don’t have to sit there bailing water. Here’s how to stop spam emails on every major email provider, the habits that keep it from coming back, and the shortcut that does most of the work for you.

Fast Fix: How to Stop Spam Emails

The quickest way to stop spam emails: report obvious spam through your email provider, block repeat senders, unsubscribe from legitimate marketing emails, and avoid interacting with suspicious messages. If you want to reduce the legitimate newsletters, notifications and other low-priority messages that still clutter your inbox, SaneBox can automatically filter them into separate folders.

Why Am I Getting So Many Spam Emails?

Spam can find you for a lot of reasons. The usual suspects:

  • A data breach. A site you signed up for years ago gets hacked, and your email ends up on a list that’s bought and sold for pennies.
  • Data brokers. Some companies collect and resell contact details. Your email can travel a long way from the place you first typed it in.
  • Sign-ups and freebies. Every giveaway, coupon and “free guide” is a small trade: your inbox for their offer. Not every company plays fair with that trade.
  • Your email is public. If your address sits on a website, a LinkedIn profile or a public forum, bots can scrape it in seconds.
  • You engaged with spam before. Opening, replying or clicking tells spammers your address is live. Live addresses are worth more, so they get more spam.

If you’ve suddenly started getting a lot more spam, one of these reasons is usually to blame. 

Spam vs Junk vs Promotional Email

These words get used interchangeably, but they’re not the same thing:

  • Spam is unsolicited bulk email you never agreed to receive. Some of it is harmless, some of it is a scam.
  • Junk is the folder where your email app sends messages it thinks you don’t want. Spam usually lands there, but so can real email.
  • Promotional email is marketing email from a company or organization. You may have signed up for it directly, or agreed to receive marketing while using a service. If you no longer want to see it, use the sender’s unsubscribe option. 

Why it matters: the fix is different for each. You report spam, you rescue real email from junk, and you unsubscribe from promotions. For a deeper breakdown, read How to Tell the Difference Between Spam and Junk Mail.

How to Stop Spam Emails on Each Provider

Every provider has its own tools. Two rules apply everywhere: report spam instead of just deleting it (it trains the filter), and block or filter repeat offenders so they never land in front of you again.

How to Stop Spam Emails on Gmail

Gmail’s spam filter is strong, but it learns from you.

  1. Report spam. Open the email (or check the box next to it in your inbox) and click Report spam, the exclamation mark icon. Gmail moves it to Spam and gets better at catching similar mail.
  2. Block the sender. Open the email, click the three dots next to Reply and choose Block “sender name”. According to Google, all future emails from that sender go straight to Spam.
  3. Create a filter. Click the sliders icon in the search bar, enter the sender or a phrase the spam keeps using (like a domain), click Create filter, then tick Delete it. Future matches skip your inbox entirely.

How to Stop Spam Emails on Outlook

  1. Report it. Select the email and choose Report > Report junk (in some versions, Junk > Junk).
  2. Block the sender or domain. In new Outlook and Outlook.com, go to Settings > Mail > Junk email. Add an address under Blocked senders or a whole domain under Blocked domains, then click Save.
  3. Know where it goes. Per Microsoft, blocked mail goes to your Junk Email folder and is deleted automatically after 14 days or more.

One catch: new Outlook can’t block senders for Gmail or Yahoo accounts you’ve added to it. You’ll need to block those in Gmail or Yahoo directly.

How to Stop Spam Emails on Yahoo Mail

  1. Mark as spam. Select the email and click Spam in the toolbar.
  2. Block the address. Go to Settings > More Settings > Security and Privacy. Under Blocked addresses, click Add, enter the address and click Save. Yahoo lets you block up to 1,000 addresses.
  3. Use the Unsubscribe button for legit senders. Yahoo shows it at the top of many marketing emails.

How to Stop Spam Emails on iPhone

The built-in Mail app gives you two tools:

  1. Move it to Junk. Open the email, tap the folder icon (or swipe left and tap More), then choose Move to Junk. If you use iCloud Mail, this helps train the filter.
  2. Block the sender. Tap the sender’s name at the top of the email and choose Block this Contact.
  3. Decide what blocking does. Go to Settings > Apps > Mail > Blocked Sender Options and pick Move to Trash. Otherwise blocked mail just gets a label and still sits in your inbox.

Using the Gmail or Outlook app on your iPhone? Follow the steps for that provider. The spam settings live with your email account, not your phone.

How to Stop Spam Emails on Android

Most Android phones use the Gmail app:

  1. Open the email.
  2. Tap the three dots in the top right corner.
  3. Tap Report spam, or Block “sender name” for repeat offenders.

Both actions sync to your Gmail account, so they work on your computer too. If you use Samsung Email or another app, look for the same options under the three-dot menu.

How to Permanently Stop Spam Emails: 6 Habits

Reporting and blocking clean up today’s mess. These habits stop tomorrow’s.

  1. Use an alias for sign-ups. Gmail lets you add a “+” to your address (yourname+shopping@gmail.com). Apple’s Hide My Email, part of iCloud+, creates random addresses that forward to you. If an alias starts getting spam, you know who leaked it, and you can switch it off.
  2. Never reply to spam. Not even “stop emailing me.” A reply confirms that a real person reads this inbox.
  3. Don’t click unsubscribe in suspicious spam. If you recognize a legit newsletter, clicking unsubscribe is fine. If the message looks suspicious or comes from an unknown sender, that link often just confirms your address is active (more on this below).
  4. Hide your email online. Remove it from public profiles, or write it as “name at domain dot com” so scrapers miss it.
  5. Turn off remote images. Many spam emails hide tiny tracking pixels. In Apple Mail, turn on Protect Mail Activity. In Gmail, go to Settings > Images and choose Ask before displaying external images.
  6. Read the fine print on sign-up forms. Untick the “share my info with partners” box. That box is how one email list becomes ten.

Will spam ever stop completely? No. Any address that’s been online for a while will get some. But these habits turn a flood into a trickle.

And remember to keep your own devices clean. The FTC notes that spammers use malware-infected devices to send spam in bulk. Keep your security software and passwords up to date so your own computer isn’t part of the problem.

Should You Unsubscribe From Spam?

It depends on who sent it.

Safe to unsubscribe: emails from brands you recognize and signed up with. Use the provider’s built-in unsubscribe button (Gmail and Yahoo both show one at the top of most marketing emails). Gmail also has a Manage subscriptions view that lists your mailing lists in one place.

Not safe: emails from senders you’ve never heard of, offering things you never asked for. Clicking their unsubscribe link can confirm your address, take you to a phishing page, or both. Report and block instead.

We go deeper in Should You Unsubscribe From Spam?, plus how to safely unsubscribe from an email newsletter.

How to Spot Dangerous Spam: Phishing and Malware Red Flags

Most spam is just noise. Some of it is a trap. Watch for these red flags:

  • Urgency. “Your account will be closed in 24 hours.” Real companies rarely threaten you by email.
  • A sender address that’s slightly off. “support@paypa1.com” is not PayPal.
  • Links that don’t match. Hover over a link (or long-press on mobile) to see where it actually goes before you tap.
  • Unexpected attachments. Especially .zip, .exe, .html, or Office files asking you to “enable content.”
  • Requests for passwords, codes or payment details. No legit company asks for these by email.
  • Too-good-to-be-true offers. Prizes, refunds and inheritances you never applied for.

AI has made phishing emails far more polished, so typos aren’t the giveaway they used to be. When in doubt, go to the company’s website directly instead of clicking. For more, see 5 Ways to Avoid Phishing Attacks and 10 Tips on How to Identify a Malware Email. You can also report scams to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

The Easier Way: Automatically Filter Email You Don’t Need

Here’s the problem with doing all of the above by hand: it’s a full-time job. Every block, every filter, every report is one more tiny task. And spam is only part of the story. The bigger time sink is the legit email you don’t need right now: newsletters, receipts, notifications and cold pitches.

That’s what SaneBox was built for. It works with Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, iCloud and almost any other email account, and it uses AI to learn what matters to you.

  • Only important email stays in your inbox. Everything else moves to folders like SaneLater, so you can check it when it suits you.
  • SaneBlackHole makes unwanted senders disappear. Drag any email into the SaneBlackHole folder and future emails from that sender skip your inbox and get trashed automatically. No unsubscribe link, simply drag the message. Change your mind? You can undo it from your SaneBox dashboard.
  • It works everywhere. Because SaneBox works on your email account, not inside one app, your trainings apply on your laptop, your iPhone and your Android phone. Train once, done everywhere.

Spam filters stop the worst of it. SaneBox handles everything else.

FAQ

Is it better to block spam emails or just delete them?

Block or report them. Deleting removes one email; reporting trains your spam filter and blocking stops that sender for good. If a spammer keeps switching addresses, set up a filter by domain or keyword, or let a tool like SaneBox catch the pattern for you. For more on blocking a specific person, see our guide on how to block emails. [link to Brief 2 once live]

Why am I suddenly getting a lot of spam emails?

A sudden spike usually means your address landed on a new list, often from a data breach or a site that sold its contact data. Check if your address appeared in a recent breach, change your passwords, and start using aliases for new sign-ups.

Will spam emails eventually stop?

Not on their own. Spammers rarely remove addresses from their lists. Reporting, blocking and filtering will cut the volume a lot over a few weeks, but some spam will always slip through. That’s why automatic filtering matters.

How do I block spam emails without opening them?

In Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo, tick the checkbox next to the email in your inbox and use the Report spam or Junk button. You can also add the address to your blocked list in settings. On iPhone, swipe left on the email and move it to Junk. With SaneBox, drag it into SaneBlackHole without opening it.

Stop Sorting Spam by Hand

You have better things to do than play whack-a-mole with your inbox. Report what you can, build the habits, and let AI handle the rest.

Stop sorting spam by hand. Try SaneBox free and let AI keep junk out of your inbox.