Whitelisting with Gmail

by R. Toby Richards

Before I get started with my tutorial, I'd like to mention something that I only found out because of my involvement in scam-baiting (visit 419eater.com if you want to know what that is).

Among what I consider to be the "Big Four" web mail providers (AOL Mail, Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, and Gmail), Gmail is the only one that does not include your IP address in the header of the message.  Other providers that have this feature include Hushmail and Inbox.com.

This is the best solution that I've found to completely avoid spam.  It works well for me.

It is a bit of work to set up, and can be a pain for any friends you overlook, but it's worth it.  These instructions are for Gmail.  You can do the same thing with Outlook, but other than Gmail, I am not aware of any free email provider with the proper features:

First, choose a password.  The purpose of the password will become clear later.  For this example, I'll use the password: whitelist

Second, set up a second Gmail account.  For this example, we will suppose that this second account is: account2@gmail.com

Set Up This Filter in Gmail:

From: -(myfriend@gmail.com OR mymom@yahoo.com OR myemployer.com OR mychurch.org OR .edu OR .gov) Subject: -(whitelist) Action: Skip Inbox, Forward it to account2@gmail.com, Delete it.

Set Up This "Vacation Responder" in Account2:

You are receiving this message because you have sent me an email, but you are not on my whitelist. Your message to me was automatically deleted. If you believe that you should be on my whitelist, then send me an email with the subject line "whitelist" (without quotes). Regardless of the sender, I receive all emails whose subject is "whitelist".

Now you will only receive email from people (or domains) in your whitelist.

If you've overlooked anybody, they can send you an email titled "whitelist" and you will get it.  Then you'll have the option to add them to your filter above.  If you are expecting an email that you don't get, then you can check Account2, where everything that's not on your whitelist goes.

Hints

Your "password" is not case sensitive.

Putting mychurch.org into your filter will allow you to receive email from anybody whose address ends in @mychurch.org.

Putting .gov into your filter will allow you to receive emails from any U.S. government agency.  Same goes for .edu.  I've never received spam from .gov, .edu, or .mil.

Here are some common domains you may want in your filter:

google.com (These aren't Gmail users. This will allow you to get e-mail messages from the Google company.) 2600.com amazon.com newegg.com yourbank.com youremployer.com youtube.com anydomainyoucompletelytrust.com

Also, if you own your own domain, then it wouldn't hurt to add that.