As for many things in life… it depends.
We all received ads, offers, warnings, notices that may cause us to act too quickly and just want to be rid of them. Many emails offer a place to click to unsubscribe. Should you? Probably not. For many senders it will tell them that you are monitoring your email and that the address is real/live. You might do yourself more harm by responding to the “unsubscribe”. Clicking on that button or link might take you to a malicious website, even if the email looks convincing and from a company you might already know. Be especially wary of ones that are asking for a password or other credentials to unsubscribe. Think,,, if you don’t trust the source, why would you trust the link?
It’s possible that clicking on an unsubscribe link in the body of an email could expose a user’s device to malware, but that isn’t a highly effective tactic for bad actors. For the criminal to succeed, he says, three things would have to align: You would have to be using a version of a browser with an unknown vulnerability; criminals would have to be targeting the specific vulnerable browser you’re using; and you would have to have clicked on the fake unsubscribe link.
It would be better to go to the website directly if you know the company and look around for a method to unsubscribe directly on the website.
Using “list-unsubscribe headers”—the built-in, hyperlinked buttons maintained by many email-service providers and positioned in the heading of emails that give users an easy way to opt out of emails. These are generally safer than clicking on unsubscribe links in the body of emails, they say, because they don’t take you out to the web. Likely ok to use for companies you know or have done business with in the past.
If that hyperlinked list-unsubscribe header option isn’t available, or the sender of the email looks shady, the easiest fix, experts say, is to mark the unwanted email as spam or “blocked sender” and move on.
Still annoyed? Set up a filter for emails from the sender in question that automatically diverts them to your spam box. And going forward, use a dedicated and disposable email address when signing up for services, lists or coupons.
Apple Mail offers “Hide My Email” feature, lets users generate unique, random email addresses that automatically forward to their real email inbox. That way, users can sign up for services, make purchases and get coupons, among other things, while keeping their email address private. In MacMail, right click, on an email and click “Block Sender”. This should send the next email from that address to your Junk Folder. It works most of the time, but you may require additional tweaking.
Use the Blocked pane of Junk Mail settings in Mail to change options for blocked senders.
To change these settings in the Mail app on your Mac, choose Mail > Settings, click Junk Mail, then click Blocked. See https://support.apple.com/guide/mail/change-blocked-settings-mlhle407d4a3/15.0/mac/13.0
Chrome and Firefox users can download and employ similar privacy extensions.
For texts, avoid the suggestion in the text to replay with Stop or some other word to end future texts. Instead, slide the message to the left and select Delete and Report as Junk or something similar. Android users will likely have a similar option. Future message from that sender should not arrive as a new message.