I’ve been using Gmail since its earliest days and am just now discovering that I am using it much like I use most applications that I have installed – mostly those visible traits. I sometimes may not use well over half the capabilities of most programs. I know that is true for programs like Word, Excel, Photoshop, Evernote, etc.

But back to Gmail. One of the major reasons that I like Gmail is its spam catching ability. At the end of the day (or during a slow day) I will pay attention to the Spam folder. I’ll move into it and see what is there and where it comes from and usually whisk it all away.

For some reason today has been a nit-picky day for me. Sure GMail detects those Viagra ads and Fancy Replica ads, and Insurances ads, and get rich quick ads. But there they are in the spam folder mocking me. When I get verifiable spam, I want it to GO AWAY!

Today, I saw about 30 emails in my spam folder with the topic of “Canadian Pharmacy”. There is no reason in the world I should be getting that. So, I set out to find out how to filter all such emails and send them directly to the ether.

I chose the Search box at the top of the open Gmail window, clicked on the down arrow and was presented with a dialog box. I chose “All Email” in the Search Window and typed in Canadian Pharmacy into the From box. I could have chosen to add items into a few other boxes also  but at this time I was just interested in seeing if I could pinpoint a specific title in my inbox.

After identifying the From source, I clicked on ‘Create filter with this search’ at the bottom right of the box. I was then presented with a window which handles the disposition of the identified message.  I chose “Delete it”. Then I clicked on the Create  filter button. Bam. No more emails from “Canadian Pharmacy”.

NOTE: Incidentally, the Canadian Pharmacy emails were not coming from Canada. They were coming from India.  (The domain extension was ‘.in’). So this got me to thinking about those emails that I get from countries where there could be no one that I’m interested in doing business with.

With a little more research, I found that if I used the code .tld followed by a space and the country extension, I could identify and zap that kind of email. So now I have two filters for annoying emails from Russia (.tld ru) and India (.tld .in).

Phew. Glad that’s done. Now, what else can I find to gripe about?

How about you? How do you deal with spam? Tell me. Comment please.