Most people naturally become nervous as they see they got an email that is unwanted and that is instantly labeled as being spam. If you are a heavy email user there is a pretty good possibility you actually get hundreds of spam emails per week, or even per day, based on activity.
The common approach is to select the unwanted messages and then delete them. However, this is not always something that you want to do. What happens if you mistakenly identified a message as being spam? If this is the case, it is possible you will end up with some serious problems. As an example, if the boss sends you an email and you do not even open it, you might get fired.
Why Not Use Spam Filters
The biggest disadvantage of using an email filter is that you may end up with messages being identified as being spam through a mistake of the algorithm that is used. According to Steven Scott Bayesian specialist, even with the very best spam filters on the market you can still end up with messages being improperly labeled.
While missing out on important emails is a nuisance, we need to think about the fact that you can also miss the same emails if you receive a lot of spam. How can you see that message from the boss if there are hundreds of emails sent every single day? You can be highly attentive and still miss out on some emails.
What Should You Do?
We cannot dismiss the fact there is a clear disadvantage of using the email spam filters but at the end of the day, it is much better to actually have one installed on the server you use or in the program you use. This means you need to be a little careful and you need to do some things.
For starters, be sure that you use a really good spam filter for your email address. There are many cases in which servers already have some installed but this is not always the case or the filter added is not of a good quality. Ask questions and see what is currently installed. In most situations, the best spam filter you want to look out for is the Bayesian one. Learn the advantages and disadvantages of the email filters before you install them.
The other thing that you can do is to keep using the spam filter. Many just have a filter added to their addresses, like the automatic one that is already a part of Gmail. However, they just do not use them. If you receive an email message that is spam, appropriately label it. Also, from time to time do check the spam tag and see what was automatically added there. Identify the messages that should not be there and “Mark Them As Not Spam”. By doing this you allow the spam filters to adapt and learn. In the future, identifying the spam messages becomes more and more effective. This cannot happen if you just leave the filter to work alone.
