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I have a folder on my mail server called “Dead”. If I move an email to that folder then all subsequent emails to the same address as the first one go into “De

I have a folder on my mail server called “Dead”. If I move an email to that folder then all subsequent emails to the same address as the first one go into “Dead/Match”. It’s driven by procmail and a script. When used with one-off email addresses you get a behavior that’s like unsubscribing, but without having to trust any “unsubscribe” links or processes, and also without having to edit any config files (it’s all driven from iOS Mail.) 1/ book your hotel using the email address $RANDOM@yourdomain 2/ receive booking conformation and enjoy holiday 3/ when you eventually get marketing spam, file it in Dead and never be bothered again.

Theboda 7y ago
Would you mind sharing the code you're using for that?
michaelfavia 7y ago
Until you book again at that hotel chain or third party agent like Priceline and never receive another email again right? I like the premise but the details seem like they would cause more trouble than the solution solves.
- gorgoiler 7y ago
  This would be true, but in practice I sign up with a brand new email address each time. I am certainly missing out on loyalty / reward points, but I don’t travel often enough for it to matter.
- davchana 7y ago
  Same thing happened with me twice. Long time ago I setup workflowy.com to send me emails of daily changes; gmail filter to mark as read, apply label, archive & forward to Trello board. So twice I forgot the password, asked password reset link; & it is not coming to my inbox; because that filter was auto reading & archiving it.
michaelbrave 7y ago
I've been half tempted to build an email client just to have similar functionality to that.
rsync 7y ago
Interesting ... that is superior to my own method, which is to simply add the From: address to my blacklist file: :0 * ? formail -x"From" -x"From:" -x"Sender:" \ -x"Reply-To:" -x"Return-Path:" -x"To:" \ | egrep -is -f /usr/home/john/.blacklist.txt blacklist

Theboda 7y ago

Would you mind sharing the code you're using for that?

michaelfavia 7y ago

Until you book again at that hotel chain or third party agent like Priceline and never receive another email again right? I like the premise but the details seem like they would cause more trouble than the solution solves.

gorgoiler 7y ago
This would be true, but in practice I sign up with a brand new email address each time. I am certainly missing out on loyalty / reward points, but I don’t travel often enough for it to matter.
davchana 7y ago
Same thing happened with me twice. Long time ago I setup workflowy.com to send me emails of daily changes; gmail filter to mark as read, apply label, archive & forward to Trello board. So twice I forgot the password, asked password reset link; & it is not coming to my inbox; because that filter was auto reading & archiving it.

michaelbrave 7y ago

I've been half tempted to build an email client just to have similar functionality to that.

rsync 7y ago

Interesting ... that is superior to my own method, which is to simply add the From: address to my blacklist file: :0 * ? formail -x"From" -x"From:" -x"Sender:" \ -x"Reply-To:" -x"Return-Path:" -x"To:" \ | egrep -is -f /usr/home/john/.blacklist.txt blacklist