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Show HN: The two most useful email filters

64 points by gardnr ↗ HN
The two most useful email filters that I have on my personal account automatically move the following messages to a "from-robots" folder:

* Any message that contains the word "unsubscribe" * Any message from no-reply@

As a side note: please do not send emails from no-reply@yourdomain.com If you want users to engage with your communications you need to give them an option to respond.

14 comments

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mackatsol
I’m impressed. I’ve been going about it backwards. Thanks!
butterknife
Thank you! I have also good success with :contains 'return-path' 'my=email.address'
leros
The noreply filter is going to have a lot of false positives. There are many valuable emails that just notifications and come from noreply@ in addition to emails that can be replied that come from noreply@ with a reply-to.
aix1
My thoughts exactly. I just ran a quick search of my inbox for noreply@ and almost everything it found is highly relevant. Just in the last few days:

1. a refund from an airline;

2. new health insurance policy documents;

3. a response from an ombudsman;

4. membership documents for a professional body;

5. reminders for upcoming 1:1 lessons I'm taking;

6. a couple of notifications I specifically set up.

Sending these to a separate folder would just turn that folder into a second inbox I'd have to check alongside the main one.

wodenokoto
Yeah, I get a lot of the bills that I need to pay manually from variations of noreply@ addresses.
redhale
I've seen some companies try to get around these by using the phrase "To change your email preferences..." rather than "unsubscribe".

I think "email preferences" / "notification preferences" / "communication preferences" are good additions to this short list

soheil
Seems like a no-brainer. Thank you!
otsaloma
Agreed on the unsubscribe, I have two rules: (1) List-Unsubscribe header exists or (2) message body contains "unsubscribe".
clnq
Similarly, currency symbols + noreply/no_reply sender addresses could be useful to filter out receipts. Though it might make sense to have a higher-priority rule or an exception for your bank domains.
cloudking
Unsubscribe is a good one if you really don't have any useful email subscriptions, but don't you subscribe to any useful ones like Substack newsletters etc?