How to Setup GMail as a Free Spam Filter for Your CrackBerry

[Trevor]

Here is what needs to be done to prevent spam from ending up on your BlackBerry. (Assuming your email account has a poor spam filter or doesn't have one at all.)

1. Create a free gmail account by going to gmail.com (ex spam@gmail.com)
2. Set your unfiltered email address (example@domain.com) to forward to spam@gmail.com
3. Add both spam@gmail.com and example@domain.com to your BlackBerry using the BIS website.
4. Login to BIS and click the filters button next to the example@domain.com account.
5. Check the option under "When no filter applies" that says do not forward messages to device.

That's it, enjoy your spam free email! You can now send using your example@domain.com account just as usual, but the incoming mail will route through gmail and the spam will be held from going to the device.

The whole process only take a few minutes to setup and costs nothing. I just can't see wasting money on a pay solution. An added bonus is that Gmail will archive your email and keep copies of your received mail so if you need it is available to you.

Good luck,
Trevor

[wirelessforever]

Originally Posted by Trevor

Here is what needs to be done to prevent spam from ending up on your BlackBerry. (Assuming your email account has a poor spam filter or doesn't have one at all.)

1. Create a free gmail account by going to gmail.com (ex spam@gmail.com)
2. Set your unfiltered email address (example@domain.com) to forward to spam@gmail.com
3. Add both spam@gmail.com and example@domain.com to your BlackBerry using the BIS website.
4. Login to BIS and click the filters button next to the example@domain.com account.
5. Check the option under "When no filter applies" that says do not forward messages to device.

That's it, enjoy your spam free email! You can now send using your example@domain.com account just as usual, but the incoming mail will route through gmail and the spam will be held from going to the device.

The whole process only take a few minutes to setup and costs nothing. I just can't see wasting money on a pay solution. An added bonus is that Gmail will archive your email and keep copies of your received mail so if you need it is available to you.

Good luck,
Trevor

Wouldn't it be easier just to use Gmail as your primary email address?

That's what I do and I love Gmail.

[betteroffdad]

Originally Posted by wirelessforever

Wouldn't it be easier just to use Gmail as your primary email address?

That's what I do and I love Gmail.

Not really an option for most corporate users. People get snobby about email addresses, and I'm not telling any of my clients to email me at gmail dot anything, lol.

Interesting...I actually did this awhile back to forward all of my hotmail and another private email (that was getting about 100 spam per day because it was posted on the net) to a gmail account that I set up. Then I set my BIS to get my corporate email and my gmail, which got all of my personal email. It cut down my spam by 99%, but I hadn't tried doing the same for my corporate email. I'm gonna' try it out.

Now, I did set my corporate email to forward to gmail, but I did it in the hopes that my corporate email would come to my phone as fast as gmail does. It didn't work for some reason, and I'm still trying to figure that out.

[shadowsports]

Great Idea, but my gmail inbox gets SPAMMED bit time and I have taken very aggressive steps creating filters and such to combat this. If I was depending on Gmails spam filtering to keep my inbox clean, I'd be sunk. I got a gmail account very early on and stupidly chose a very popular addy. The account receives about 30+ spam emails p/ day. Of those, about 3 make it into my box each day. My hotmail account is much better, spam free. My gmail account is a joke, but everyone wants the address. Its not my screen name BTW.

[Bla1ze]

lol stop posting your email to every web site that asks for it, no matter how "popular" an email address is, it can only be obtained by

A) You giving it to them.
B) Spam bots perusing websites to find email accounts.

I have had a gmail account from the very first day it was launched,NEVER do I get any spam in it.

[shadowsports]

Originally Posted by Bla1ze

lol stop posting your email to every web site that asks for it, no matter how "popular" an email address is, it can only be obtained by

A) You giving it to them.
B) Spam bots perusing websites to find email accounts.

I have had a gmail account from the very first day it was launched,NEVER do I get any spam in it.

Funny Bla1ze,

A) I never gave the address out
B) SPAM bots didn't find it ether

It's just a common name, well known, in a dictionary and easily guessed. I use the account infrequently, but am amazed how much it gets hit. I've watched it increase steadily over the years.

I don't have spam problems elsewhere, nor do any of the employees in our company using an Exchange server which I am responsible for. SPAM is big business. I am well aware of how it works and propagates. I'm sure you do as well.

Thanks

[Bla1ze]

how do you know if spam bots didnt find it, since you are so well aware of how it propagates then you are also well aware of how easily it is obtained..if one was looking for it...one script on a pc can scour millions of webpages in a day and find billions of email addresses...exchange servers understandably will get less spam, thats just common sense there....but I agree with you..if IT was that easily "guessed", but I dunno many spammers who would waste time guessing emails when they have spam lists and spiders/bots for that lol.

[shadowsports]

Agreed, I'm sure existing names gathered by bots, crawlers and spiders were used, compiled then changed to @gmail.com domain. Their work was cut out for them. I use and test accounts with yahoo, gmail, hotmail and lycos. In my experience Hotmail and Yahoo have been the most aggressive.

[Bla1ze]

I've not used a hotmail account in years, I have a yahoo account, but I think I only signed up for it cause I needed a Flickr ID or something...but as I stated I have no problems with my gmail account, guess just luck, that and I very rarely issue it out to anyone really, only trusted websites and people...all other email goes through one of my domain names.

[pungu]

This all sounds good but I still need to use outlook from time to time for my email. I have great filter on outlook. How can set up system to only send a copy of my email to gmail?

Don

[Sayuuk]

Originally Posted by Trevor

Here is what needs to be done to prevent spam from ending up on your BlackBerry. (Assuming your email account has a poor spam filter or doesn't have one at all.)

1. Create a free gmail account by going to gmail.com (ex spam@gmail.com)
2. Set your unfiltered email address (example@domain.com) to forward to spam@gmail.com
3. Add both spam@gmail.com and example@domain.com to your BlackBerry using the BIS website.
4. Login to BIS and click the filters button next to the example@domain.com account.
5. Check the option under "When no filter applies" that says do not forward messages to device.

That's it, enjoy your spam free email! You can now send using your example@domain.com account just as usual, but the incoming mail will route through gmail and the spam will be held from going to the device.

The whole process only take a few minutes to setup and costs nothing. I just can't see wasting money on a pay solution. An added bonus is that Gmail will archive your email and keep copies of your received mail so if you need it is available to you.

Good luck,
Trevor

Why do you still add both of the adresses to your BIS? Isn't it sufficient to just add the new gmail account?

[Zak8022]

Originally Posted by Sayuuk

Why do you still add both of the adresses to your BIS? Isn't it sufficient to just add the new gmail account?

I don't think you would really need to. You'd just need to make sure that in your BIS setting for the gmail account you set the Reply-to address as your business email account... that way it won't look like you're routing anything thru gmail.

[bdigital3]

Great tip, thanks.

[gmergurltech]

Thanks for the information.

[dshogan]

How do I reply to received messages without them coming from the gmail address? I have changed my reply to: but when I do the replying it comes from gmail.