These built-in features help protect your data and keep your inbox clean.
It’s one of the 1.5 billion people who use Gmail, but many users are diving right in their inbox without exploring additional features.Basically, Gmail has a variety of options and features to help you keep it safe and secure from fraudsters and advertisers when it comes to keeping your email confidential. Here are the best ones.
1. Permanent spammer blockingIf someone is blocking your inbox, but Gmail’s spam reporting doesn’t catch it, you can easily block individual senders with Gmail. With the email open, click on the three dots at the top right and then select Block. All subsequent mails received from such senders are automatically introduced into the spam folder, so there is no need to view them.But don’t count even if the spam reporting feature doesn’t seem to work. It’s not intended to prevent emails from the same sender from reaching users, but it helps to train Gmail’s spam filters using the email’s content and attributes. Google said it analyzed a certain number of reported emails to improve the algorithm.Create filters for more customized control. Instead of choosing Block Spam or Report Spam from the menu, choose the following message filtering. You can then set up a series of actions that always apply to this sender’s incoming message or match the filter term. Mark e-mails as read, mark them unimportant, send them to spam folders, or delete them entirely.
2. Increase the undo send timeHere are some tips to save yourself. Gmail is fast enough for you to have-if you work by delaying the sending of an email for a few seconds, clicks can send or recall an email before reaching its recipient, with the Send Undo feature If you know the undo offer, there is a typo or wrong contact in the To field.By default, the Undo Send window is set to 10 seconds, but I’ve increased this time to 20 or 30 seconds, “Is that really said?” Click the gear icon in the top right corner of the main Gmail interface, then click Settings, then open the General tab and the Unsubscribe drop-down menu. You may be glad when you add those extra seconds.
3. Using confidential modeGmail’s recently added confidential mode is a more secure way to send email. Recipients can’t copy, forward, print, or download messages, and you can set them to expire after a certain amount of time. Password (if sent inbox is corrupted).You can enable confidential mode by clicking the little padlock symbol at the bottom of the compose window. This is especially useful if you absolutely want a message that is private or sensitive, so that others cannot read the content inside the message.At the other end of the confidential email, the recipient can see the expiration date they added, and there is no general option available for delivery and printing. The maximum time that a confidential email can exist is 5 years, so this message does not apply to messages that you want to stick with forever.Some warnings about these self-destructive and secure messages: If the recipients of these emails don’t use the official Gmail app, they should open the messages on the web instead. Also, there is nothing that can prevent a contact from taking a screenshot of a confidential message and passing an image, so this is the best mode for those you trust.
4. Clear cached offline dataGmail currently works even offline. It’s good if you’re having trouble connecting to the internet, but may not be suitable for personal information. Anyone who knows what you are looking for, even without an internet connection, can get a lot of information from Gmail’s local cache if you have physical access to your computer.If you’re using a computer shared by family, colleagues, local library visitors, or someone else, log out and see if this data has been deleted. On the main inbox screen, click the gear icon (top right), then click Settings & Offline. Check the box marked Remove offline data from my computer next to the security heading and make sure you are logged out of Gmail when done.
5. Hide external imagesBuilt-in images remain a privacy and security issue for e-mail. This is because you can display information about your browser, computer, and how you use it, not the information you want to give to someone with an email address. The worst exploits have now been patched a lot, but always at risk.However, the most common problem is email tracking. Email senders can use a small image embed called tracking pixels to know when they have opened the message they sent, when they opened it, and which device they opened. They can see if you have forwarded your email to others. This is very useful data for marketers, but it may not be the tracking you are familiar with.Gmail now performs an automatic email search to find images in use irresponsibly. Google says, “If you think in Gmail that the sender or message is suspicious, the image will not be displayed and you will be asked if you want to see the image.” If you want to go one step further than the standard Google protection, you can hide the image by default (and as an added bonus, the email will also load faster).
In the main Gmail window, click the gear icon in the top right corner and choose Settings. Open the General tab and check next image to ask before displaying the image. When I open the email, the image is not displayed, but I can load the image to a trusted email and sender.