The best way to deal with unwanted email — commonly known as "spam" or unsolicited commercial email — is never to engage in online activities that might cause you to receive it. For example, be careful when sharing your personal information online and don't reply to spam messages or "phishing" schemes that you receive.

If you use an email client like Apple Mail, Microsoft Outlook, or Mozilla Thunderbird, you can set up filters or rules to reduce the amount of unwanted email you receive. Since undesirable messages can come from a number of senders, effective strategies include filtering for offensive words that might appear in spam or phishing messages but not in a message you would want to keep, and filtering for URLs that appear in spam.

You can also proactively protect yourself against malicious email by installing antivirus and security software. For more information about avoiding unwanted email, please refer to our Best Practices.