Email Whitelisting Instructions

The best way to make sure the emails you really want to see don’t end up in the spam box is to create a list of email addresses from people you know. While this is typically called a whitelist, the modern term is safelist.

The safelisting procedure differs slightly different from one email service to the next. These instructions are for gmail and are from Lifewire. You can easily find similar instructions for your email service.

Gmail Safelist Procedure

There is no quick checkbox in Gmail to add a sender email to an actual list of friends you want to keep out of the spam box. However, there are several effective ways to safelist your friends in Gmail.

Add Email Addresses to Contacts

Open your contacts list in Gmail. The fastest method is just to visit the Google Contacts link.

On the Google Contacts page, select Create contact and fill out the Create new contact form. Google will send any incoming emails from your contact list directly to your inbox.

Safelist Spam Emails

Sometimes, a friend may send you an email that ends up in the Spam box before you’ve had a chance to safelist their email address. There’s a quick way to fix that as well.

Open your Spam box by selecting Spam from the navigation bar, and find your friend’s email. You’ll see a Spam label at the top of the email. Click the x next to the label to remove it.

Add a Non-Spam Filter

One way to guarantee that your friend’s incoming emails will never end up in the Spam box is to create a filter.

1. From your inbox screen, select Settings (gear icon).

   

2. Select See all settings.

   

3. Select Filters and Blocked Addresses from the navigation links at the top.

   

4. Select Create a new filter.

   

5. In the Search mail form, enter either an entire domain you want to safelist or a specific email address. Use domains to safelist anyone from a specific company. When you’re done, select Create filter.

   

6. On the next form, select Never send it to Spam. Finally, click Create filter.

   

7. Once you’re done, you’ll see the new filter show up in the list of filters.