Why you get spam and how to stop it

Spam is not random. Addresses reach bulk senders through a small number of well-worn routes, and understanding which one caught you is the fastest way to reduce the flow.

How your address gets out

• Data breaches. A service you signed up for is compromised and its user list is traded.
• Scraping. An address published in plain text on a website or forum is harvested automatically.
• Resale. A service shares or sells its list, sometimes legally, buried in terms you accepted.
• Guessing. Common addresses at a known domain — info@, sales@, contact@ — are targeted without any list at all.
• Your own contacts. A friend's compromised address book leaks everyone in it.

Reducing the flow

Use filters, but let the spam folder do its job. Modern filters learn from what you mark. Marking a message as spam is more useful than deleting it silently, and rescuing a false positive teaches the filter just as much.

Unsubscribe only from senders you recognise. For a legitimate newsletter, the unsubscribe link works and is the right move. For obvious spam, clicking anything confirms the address is live — block the sender instead.

Never reply, and do not load remote images in suspicious messages: a tracking pixel confirms you opened it.

Use aliases for sign-ups. A separate alias per service means you can see exactly which one leaked your address, and disable that alias without touching your main mailbox. See our guide to email aliases.

Obfuscate published addresses. On a website, use a contact form or an image rather than plain text.

Why some spam still gets through

No filter is perfect, and the trade-off matters: a filter aggressive enough to catch everything will also swallow an invoice occasionally. Server-side filtering (SPF, DKIM and DMARC checks, reputation scoring, greylisting) removes the bulk before it reaches you; client-side rules handle the rest. If a specific sender keeps landing in your inbox, a rule that files or blocks it takes ten seconds.

Spam versus phishing

Spam is unwanted advertising; phishing is fraud. A phishing message imitates a bank, a supplier or a colleague to get a password, a payment or a signature. Volume-based defences do not catch targeted phishing — the message may arrive from a properly authenticated domain that was registered yesterday. Learn the warning signs, and treat any unexpected request for credentials or payment details as suspect until verified by another channel.

Frequently asked questions

Does changing my address help? It resets the problem temporarily, but the new address will eventually be exposed too. Aliases and filters are more sustainable.

Do "remove me" replies work? Not for real spam. They confirm you exist. Use the block or spam button instead.

Why do I suddenly get much more spam? Usually a breach or a list sale. Check whether your address appears in a known breach and rotate any password you reused.

Does marking spam help other people? Yes. Providers use aggregate signals, so your reports improve filtering for everyone on the platform.

Spam handling at imail.com.tr

imail.com.tr filters mail server-side with reputation and authentication checks (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), and every mailbox can create aliases to keep sign-ups away from the main address. See the features page, or open a free account to try it.