Gmail can now automatically unsubscribe you from unwanted mailing lists

It just keeps getting better. As if the Tasks, Labs tools, numerous themes and other aspects of Gmail weren’t enough, Google has gone ahead and added a great feature to better filter out spam.

 

Unsubscribing from a mailing list can be a tedious task at times, and there have been quite a few instances where we have clicked on the “Report Spam” option instead of going through the motions. Those geniuses at Gmail saw this pattern, and have thrown in a new button: ‘Unsubscribe and report spam’.

 

Photo Credit: Lifehacker.com

Here’s what the team has to say:

 

We don’t think you should be burdened with managing messages you don’t want to receive. We do our best to put messages in Spam when we’re pretty sure you won’t want or need them. But everyone has different preferences about the mail they want to see. You may not want to read any messages sent by a certain company or mailing list, while another Gmail user finds these same messages to be valuable.


To help solve this problem, we’re providing you with an unsubscribe tool for some messages. You’ll see the unsubscribe tool when you mark a message from particular types of mailing lists as spam. If the particular message is a misuse of a mailing list you like to receive, you can Report spam as usual. But if you never want to receive another message or newsletter from that list again, click Unsubscribe instead. We’ll send a request to the sender that your email address be removed from the list. It’s that simple!


Keep in mind that mailing lists may take up to three days to process your unsubscription request, so it may take a few days for you to stop receiving mail from the list. Also, please note that we are unable to provide the Unsubscribe option for all mailing lists. For your protection, Gmail won’t display Unsubscribe for lists that are known to be owned by spammers. When you don’t see the unsubscribe tool for a particular newsletter or mailing list that you trust, check the actual message for unsubscribe options, or try contacting the list owner about removal (you should only do this if the list owner is trustworthy and not a spammer).

 

Oh Google, you truly, truly understand us!

 

 

Mihir Patkar
Digit.in
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Digit.in
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