SPAM

[karina]

Is it true that leaving spam in folder rather than deleting assists Google to identify and block spammers?

[JohnW]

It is often regarded as the better policy to leave your spam there, such that Google's system for 'determination of ham/spam' has your previous decisions as reference - for your particular mailbox.
Certainly, I leave all my spam there - and my personal experience is such that I might get 2 mis-diagnosis in about 1000 messages, and they're generally ham incorrectly labelled as spam!
It takes but seconds to skim through the senders names to see that what's labelled as spam is really that, and then I 'Mark as Read' so the next visit only requires me to examine the new arrivals, and then do likewise. That way I have about 1800 spam messages which Google can reference (and remove when their 30-day sweep occurs!) of which I take no notice at all.

Besides, leaving them there causes no pain to my system or mailbox, and should I accidentally overlook a mis-classified message, I can quickly scan through the senders names and fetch out the odd mistake. I have yet to find any benefit in either labelling the spam as Deleted (by sending it to the Bin) or indeed of forcing the removal of any items from "the Bin" itself. I've responded (as a TC) to too many people who are desperate to retrieve messages which are no longer recoverable (having been forceably removed from their mailbox in an attempt to keep the mailbox clean). The 1800 messages take up such a small amount of the whole storage quota that I can see no benefit in such removal.
As for the detection of spammers themselves, well "that's a whole different ball game!"

[karina]

Can you explain what Google does with all the spam left in folder?

Does Google collect that information to block frequent spammers?

[Andy]

> Is it true that leaving spam in folder rather than deleting assists Google
> to identify and block spammers?

I'm going to interpret the question as asking about identifying spam,
as opposed to spammers ... because I don't know whether Google blocks
spammers.

Doing what you asked was suggested in this forum a few years ago. But
all of us here don't work for Google, and I have never seen anything
from Google suggesting that there is any need, or benefit, to leaving
spam messages alone.

Indeed, Google gives us the highlighted "Delete Forever" button, so
they must think it is OK to do that. If doing that affected Google's
ability to identify spam, that would not be in their best interest.
Google takes pride in their ability to keep unwanted spam out of your
Inbox, and it would only hurt their image if they told us to do
something that impeded that ability.

For me, it doesn't hurt to leave spam in my Spam folder until it
auto-deletes some 30 days later. I also periodically mark as Read the
ones I know really are spam, which makes it easier for me to see the
new arrivals. Once marked as Read, I think of them as gone, even
though they aren't actually deleted yet.

But I understand there are some places (countries) where having
inappropriate messages in your account, even if marked as Spam, could
be a legal issue; as well as people who insist on having a clean mailbox.
I do not think it hurts to delete them if you choose to.

Just be careful NOT to mark any as Not Spam or to move them to your
Inbox before you delete them. That would incorrectly condition your
account's spam filter and cause it to miss some spam.

Andy

[karin anders]

Thanks Andy,

 

If I understand you correctly, keeping spam in folder does not imply that Google tracks and blocks frequent spammers. 

If that's the case, I'm no longer going to hold on to spam and proceed to delete the multitudes of vulgar, offensive spam i  receive daily and find so disturbing.

Karin

 

 

 

 

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[James Breen]

Dear John,
Thanks for the tips.
I never see my gmail purge itself ...ever. if I do not do it myself? My entire gig/system goes sluggish and acts weird.  Talk soon. Jim,Pocono mountains,pa.

Sent from my Kindle Fire

---

From: JohnW <john.w...@gmail.com>
Sent: Sat Feb 11 07:33:52 EST 2012
To: gmail...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Gmail-Users] Re: SPAM

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