How to Stop Receiving Obscene Emails

Introduction

Around 45% of all emails sent globally are spam. A substantial number of these emails contain obscene material. Receiving such emails can take a toll on your mental health and cause significant distress, especially when they arrive in large volumes. Not only do they disrupt your peace of mind, but they also pose a threat to your digital security. A large percentage of these emails contain malware links, and interacting with them introduces substantial risks.

It's important to address this issue to protect both your mental peace and digital privacy. Most email providers do a great job at marking these emails as spam. However, no spam filter is 100% effective, and some emails manage to evade detection despite robust measures. Moreover, spammers are also evolving their tactics over time, spoofing their email addresses to appear legitimate.

In this article, we'll explore various methods for blocking obscene emails using both Gmail and Block Sender.

Obscene Emails

Before we delve into the specifics of dealing with obscene emails, let's first understand what they are and their common causes.

Obscene emails typically contain inappropriate content, such as unsolicited explicit images and videos, vulgar or offensive language, or profanities.

Common Causes

• Spam Advertising: These emails are often part of spam campaigns promoting adult content or illegal products and services.

• Harassment: Cyber harassers aim to instill frustration and intimidation in recipients. This behavior often stems from workplace disputes or relationship issues.

• Malware Distribution: Obscene content is used as bait to grab people's attention and trick them into clicking infected attachments or links containing malware.

• Phishing or Sextortion: The senders of these emails often pretend to be from a legitimate source, tricking recipients into disclosing their personal information. Additionally, they may demand money by threatening to expose sensitive material obtained through hacking, such as explicit photos, videos, or private messages.

Proactive Steps to Minimize Obscene Emails

Taking preventive measures can significantly reduce the chances of becoming a target of obscene emails and compromising your digital security.

1. Be Careful When Sharing Your Email Address
   To avoid being targeted, don't share your email address on public forums unless absolutely necessary. Use disposable email addresses for temporary registrations on websites or when interacting with potentially unsafe sites.

2. Use Email Filters
   Gmail and other major email providers offer "filters" that can be used to block commonly used words or phrases in obscene emails, such as "singles near you," "NSFW," and "adult content."

3. Use a Strong and Secure Email Address
   Select a reliable email provider that offers robust spam filtering, blocking, and security features. Remember to enable Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) on your email account. Phishers often use obscene emails to trick users into revealing sensitive personal information. With 2FA activated, even if an attacker succeeds in stealing your login credentials, they won't be able to access your account without the second verification factor. This reduces the risk of your account being misused to send obscene emails.

4. Use Third-party Blocking Tools
   Consider using third-party tools, such as Block Sender, if your email provider is not proving to be very effective against obscene emails and if you wish to leverage advanced features not provided by your chosen email service.

Using Gmail to Block Obscene Emails

Let's explore how Gmail assists in blocking obscene emails from reaching your inbox.

Mark as Spam

According to Google, Gmail's spam filter is highly effective at blocking more than 99.9% of spam emails. However, some obscene emails bypass filters by using clever tactics such as hiding inappropriate content within images instead of text to avoid keyword-based detection and misspelling obscenities.

To further improve this spam filter, you can train it by marking obscene emails as spam so that Google will automatically recognize any similar emails received in the future.

1. Select the email(s) that you wish to mark as spam.
2. Click the Report Spam icon (indicated by an exclamation mark).

Block the Sender

If you are receiving multiple obscene emails from a specific sender, consider blocking the sender. This way, you don’t have to manually mark each email from this sender as spam, which can be a tedious process. By doing so, any future emails from this particular sender will automatically land in the spam folder, resulting in a cleaner inbox.

1. To block a sender, open any email that you have received from them.

2. Click the three vertical dots menu in the top-right corner of the email.

3. Select Block "{sender}" from the menu options.

Block the Domain

You can choose to block the entire domain that has been sending you obscene emails. Although Gmail doesn't provide a direct option to block a domain, you can accomplish this using Filters.

1. Open Gmail. Click on the gear icon in the top-right corner and select See All Settings.

2. Navigate to Filters and Blocked Addresses and click Create a new filter.

3. In the From field, enter the domain you wish to block preceded by the @ symbol, then click Create Filter.

4. Select Delete it from the list of available options and click Create Filter.

Now, all emails from this particular domain will be automatically sent to the trash folder, where they will be automatically deleted after 30 days.

Block Specific Words or Phrases

Gmail allows users to create filters for emails based on specific words or phrases in the subject line or body. This feature can be leveraged to filter and block obscene emails based on common patterns.

1. Click on the gear icon in the top-right corner and select See All Settings.

2. Navigate to Filters and Blocked Addresses and click Create a new filter.

3. In the Has the words field, type the words or phrases you wish to filter, and click Create Filter.

4. Select Delete it from the available options and click Create Filter.

Using Block Sender to Block Obscene Emails

A more effective method to block obscene emails is by using Block Sender. Block Sender for Gmail is a third-party application that streamlines the process of blocking unwanted emails. Block Sender offers a variety of ways to block emails. You can block based on criteria such as the sender, domain, email header, subject line, and keywords.

With Block Sender, you can even block emails by IP, link multiple accounts, and share blocking rules among them—features not provided by Gmail.

Now, let's explore how to use Block Sender to stop obscene emails.

Installing Block Sender and Linking Gmail Account

Block Sender is available for use both as a browser extension and through its web-based dashboard. Visit the Chrome Web Store and install the Block Sender extension.

Once the installation is complete, you will see the Block Sender icon in the top toolbar of Gmail.

1. Click the Block Sender icon, then select New Block.

2. Choose a blocking criterion, such as Person (by name).

3. Enter a value for your selected criterion, like John Doe for Person (by name) blocking.

4. Decide where you want blocked emails to be sent, such as Trash, Delete, Archive, or Spam folder.

5. Select whether to send an auto-response to the sender. (Optional)
6. Click Save.

Blocking Domains and Domain Extensions

Using Block Sender, one can easily block entire domains and domain extensions without dealing with any complicated Gmail filters.

Sending Fake Bounce-Back Messages

Block Sender allows you to send seemingly real "fake bounce-back messages" to senders. This tricks them into thinking your email address no longer exists. You can even customize your bounce-back messages by upgrading to a Plus or Pro account.

Upon receiving the bounce-back message, the spammer will very likely remove your email address from its list of targeted accounts for sending obscene emails.

Blocking IP Addresses (Pro Feature)

If you notice obscene emails from a specific IP address, you can block that address using the Block Sender tool. This tool makes it straightforward to block IP addresses without needing to set up complex filters.

This method is particularly useful when a cybercriminal uses multiple email addresses linked to the same IP address to send obscene emails. Blocking the entire IP address will save you the hassle of manually blocking each email address.

Conclusion

Receiving obscene emails can be distressing. One can effectively combat them by understanding the nature of these emails and their common causes. Employing strategies such as using a secure email address, utilizing email filters, and using third-party tools like Block Sender can significantly minimize your exposure to these emails. While Gmail provides options like marking as spam and filtering emails, third-party tools like Block Sender are more effective against such emails. If you want to block obscene emails instantly without learning the complexities of Gmail filters, we recommend choosing Block Sender for Gmail. By adopting these strategies, you can regain control of your inbox and improve your well-being.