We all like to get free stuff, right? That's why we register to win free stuff.

When you do register, they usually ask for an email address. And what do they do with that email address? They sell it to other companies.

Let's face it: today's business practices encourage people to give up their email addresses in exchange for special deals and discounts. When you give up your email address, the company can then direct its marketing right to your inbox. Here's one way to minimize those emails.

Adam Berry, Getty Images
Adam Berry, Getty Images
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First of all, if you don't have a "burner" email address, are you even living in 2022? An email address that you use ONLY when registering for deals, discounts, email receipts, or free stuff. An email address that you only give out to those people/businesses from whom you don't really care to be contacted. You only did it for the 20% discount, or to save paper by having them email the receipt. Do it now. Set up a burner account through GMail or Yahoo or the like.

If you ARE getting emails in your work or personal inbox from people or businesses from whom you'd rather not, there's no real easy way to make them magically disappear.

There is, though one tip you can use to whittle down the number of emails you receive from email lists.

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staff photo
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This tip will require some time up front, but a little maintenance in the future will help keep the emails to a minimum.

We use Microsoft Office Outlook as our company-wide work email system, and here's how I find emails from email lists from which I wish to unsubscribe.

When you open your email, go to the "Search Email" block in your email system. Then type in the word "Unsubscribe" and, in an instant, you should be looking at any email which contains the word "unsubscribe".

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staff photo
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Now, if your inbox looks like mine did before I tried this, you'll be looking at dozens and dozens of emails, possibly into the hundreds.

If you sort those results alphabetically, you'll be able to easily see who the email is from. If it is from a company from which you no longer want to receive correspondence, open the email and click the "Unsubscribe" button at the bottom.

Townsquare Photo by John Falcon
Townsquare Photo
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You should only have to unsubscribe from each sender once.

For instance, if you receive emails from "Uncle Bob's Grocery Coupon Warehouse" every day with a new offer, you should only have to click on one of the emails from "Uncle Bob's Grocery Coupon Warehouse" to unsubscribe.

Many times, when you do click the "Unsubscribe" button, it will give you several options: Unsubscribe, Preferences, Change My Info, Edit Profile, etc.  Go with which is best for you.

After you've gone through and unsubscribed from each sender, you can then select the emails from people from which you no longer want to receive correspondence and bulk delete them!

Now, for the maintenance part I mentioned earlier: if you search for "Unsubscribe" on a daily or weekly basis, you'll be able to keep your spam emails to a minimum.

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