I sent one out to my aunt who has much different political leanings than I. I just nicely asked her not to forward such mail as it offends me. She still sends the cute or funny stuff, but not political.

I know what you mean. You don't really want to alienate friends and loved ones, but then again if you are like me, you might not have the time, or want to take the time to open all of them.

I have made it known that I get so many from so many folks that I usually just have to delete them all and frequently clean things.

I have warned a few of the dangers of sending stuff on, with all those hundreds of email addresses left attached. I have also tried to instruct them how to use BCC so my email addy won't be out there being forwarded on to thousands of others in the months to come. That stopped a good bit of it.

Might you consider having an anonymous letter being sent to them?

Sue

Here is a link that might be useful: StopForwarding.Us

I'd just say something like "I'm trying very hard to avoid getting viruses on my computer. As a result, would you please not forward any joke emails, political emails, religious emails, chain emails to me? I hope you will respect this request. Thank you."

I got rid of tons of stuff with this type of request.

My neighbour who is a senior is notorious at sening all that crap to everyone.
She asked me once if there's anything I don't want her to send. I replied anything religious and pictures of little babies.
Since her memory is so poor, guess what I get??
I'm to the point where I just delete most things from her without even opening.

It's amazing how many people don't use the BBC. It's a habit with me. I would hate to not use it.

And people fall for those chain letters about a sick kid, and send an email all around the world. How does the 500th person know where to send the email to?? Just a free marketing ploy.

Here is a cute animated utube video that should give them your message.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqYaqbGXZpA

You can just say you are "swamped" with e-mail to handle on a daily basis and ask them not to forward things (as much as you enjoy them), although you are happy to receive personal e-mail notes from them.

I just set a rule in my email program:

Anything with the subject line beginning with FW is sent to the deleted file.

I just have to skim through the deleted file to see if any good mail was accidently sent there, then empty the whole file.

That has saved some hassel, but I wish the little envelope (mail indicater) would not show when I rec. mail in the deleted file.

I hate to have all the FW mail go to the deleted folder. I get lots of good jokes and pics. Just don't want specific topics sent to me.

socks is correct...I don't think it should be necessary to beat around the bush...send it to all who offend and just say, I just can't handle all of the email any more so I need your help ....Please take me off your forward list....blah blah blah...when you beat around the bush, sometimes people don't get the message....and truthfully if you have someone that is so easily offended...maybe it's worth offending them.

Here's a modified copy of the email letter I sent to my friends a couple years ago:

Dear friends in my email address book:
As many of you already know, I've been having problems with my computer that I can't figure out, so I've decided to just get a whole new computer. To avoid infecting my new computer, I will no longer be accepting bulk email messages or forwarded messages at this address. In other words, I will only open messages that are addressed just to me, not to a list of many people. All other messages will be deleted automatically. This should prevent viruses that come through email and should also reduce the number of spam messages I get.
If you'd like to send me a joke, link to a web site, funny photograph, or similar content (no religious or political material, petitions, or chain letters please), please send it to xxxxxxx@xxx.xxx. I check my email at that address at least every couple days.

And please also follow these guidelines in all the email you send, to protect both yourself and your friends from viruses and spam:

(1) When you forward email, DELETE all of the other addresses that appear in the body of the message. That's right, DELETE them. Highlight them and delete them, backspace them, cut them, whatever it is you know how to do. It only takes a second. You MUST click the "Forward" button first and then you will have full editing capabilities against the body and headers of the message. If you don't click on "Forward" first, you won't be able to edit the message at all.

(2) Whenever you send an email to more than one person, do NOT use the To: or Cc: fields for adding email addresses. Always use the BCC: (blind carbon copy) field for listing the email addresses. This way the people you send to will see only their own email address. If you don't see your BCC: option, click on where it says To: and your address list will appear. Highlight the address and choose BCC: and that's it, it's that easy. When you send to BCC: your message will automatically say "Undisclosed Recipients in the "TO:" field of the people who receive it.

(3) ALWAYS hit your Forward button from the actual email you are reading. Ever get those emails that you have to open 10 pages to read the one page with the information on it? By Forwarding from the actual page you wish someone to view, you stop them from having to open many emails just to see what you sent.

Thanks very much!

chemocurl--I feel like an idiot, but I have to ask what BCC is, and how it is used. Thanks.

but I have to ask what BCC is, and how it is used.
Blind Carbon Copy. There should be an address line for addresses that will be blind when sent.

Say I want to forward something to 2 folks yet I don't want them to see the other's addy, or even know who I am sending the email to.

When they get it, it will only show that it was sent to them. They will not see the other email addy.

Sometimes you have to click something in the email program in order to see the BCC and CC (Carbon Copy) lines for addresses.

In Hotmail there is a link above the email form that says Show Cc and Bcc When I click on that, it will show 2 more lines for addresses, besides the regular To address line.

I don't know if it's true or not, but I once read that WHENEVER an email tell you to forward to all your friends or whatever...IT is ALWAYS a trojan horse searching for more email addresses... ALWAYS...

I forward NOTHING...although I sometimes share it in other ways...just not by the FORWARD method.

I hate forwards, and I don't send any, either. Like
Redcurls - if there is something I want to share
with someone, I C&P it or parts of it.

I automatically delete forwards. I have a BIL that
forwards all kinds of junk to everyone he knows. Lazy,
I call it.

I agree 100% with this.I too am having trouble with two people that forward EVERYTHING.I get so tired of having hit the delete button.I do not want to sound mean but we have alot of trouble with our computers.I have told these two please do not forward anything to me because I am having so much trouble and I did not want a virus.I do have a protection on my computer.One of the two wrote me and said I needed to get me a virus protecter.It made me mad because she could not get the hint.So ever day my mailbox is full of jokes,and junk mail forward to me.Some people can not get a hint and I need to do as Ruthie and others said,don't hint around the bush come out and tell them.I know one of the two will blow up and get mad.But if she does she was not a friend in the first place.I hate to hurt feelings but sometime you can not help if they get their feelings hurt.Thanks so much for starting this post wantoretire.

I just delete-delete-delete. I enjoy hearing from most people, so anything political or religious I just ignore, especially chain mails that forecast bad luck if you delete them.

Thank you, chemocurl, for the excellent explanation. "Carbon"?? That's funny. My sister once asked me to do this and I didn't know what she was talking about; when I asked for an explanation, it was so brief (email) that I didn't really get it. Much easier to let it go with her than to press. Thanks again.

It is my mother who does this - and I have talked with her about it and shown her how to BCC. I finally chnaged my email address (for other reasons) and did not give her the new one. However, my son gave it to her. Guess he wanted company in his misery.

I have asked people very politely not to send me posts that are anything but personal e-mails. If they persist, I simply hit reply and send it back to them.

Just tell your correspondents that you do not participate in chain mail - peroid, and to remove you from their forwarding list. If this is not stong enough, add that many chain mails may carry trojan horses, tracking cookies, and other viruses, and that you do not wish to deal with those. Futhermore, you do not appreciate chain mails with repeats of the same message, just because some senders were too lazy to fix up the message before forwarding.

I'm just direct with the specific individuals who email me stuff I do not want, be it political, religious, or of the rumor type messages. I cut them some slack the first couple times. Then I handle it one at a time, as the situation calls for. So for the couple women who got into forwarding rumor type stuff, I sent them the link about that rumor on Snopes.com and suggested that they check things out before "spreading rumors." One woman told me she didn't have time to search for facts on every emails she receives... I said "Then don't waste your time forwarding them." Most of them are lies, use your noggin!

When the person sends me stuff I just don't agree with, after a couple I just reply to them "Our opinions on this subject do not agree. If you don't send me yours, I won't send you mine." That works. I tell them I will start deleting everything they send me if they aren't more selective. I try to tell them the effect of over-forwarding is like crying wolf, eventually everyone thinks "Oh, from her, she never sends anything important." One woman would not stop, emails every day, junk. I moved her to my junk folder, everything she sends goes there, I never open a thing she sends. That's what happens, people don't trust you anymore.

Currently, the team mom for DD's gymnastics team sends me emails I do not want. She sends me gym related info that I need, but half the email I get from her is political, relgious, or just plain weird, and sent to her entire address list. I'm about to just tell her personally that I want her to use my email only for info I need to know for gym. Actually, I'm having a hard time negotiating this new "friendship" all around. She drives me nuts, but she is very generous to the girls (she hand-knitted scarves for all 10 of them for Christmas, provides goody bags after meets... very generous). My impression is that she uses her generosity to take privileges with boundaries.

On the rare occassion that I forward a non-essential email to someone, I do it selectively. I forward it only to the few (or just one or two) people from my list who I think will actually want it. I wish others would do the same.

My old pal from work emails me often. Most of the things she sends me I can't open. I get re-directed to a MicroSoft site. Those I just delete.

Add me to the list of getting these frustrating personal survey, religious and political emails from a couple of friends that just won't stop it. I've asked politely and never send them or reply back to them with that kind of junk. My delete button will soon be broken from overuse as I don't even look at their stuff anymore.

Check out how to write the rule that makes anything with the subject line "fw:" go to the spam folder. I'm sure there's someone more knowledgeable than I who can give the specifics... sorry I can't.

what annoys me? relatives can take the time to send these types of post but not take 2 minutes to update you on family members...i have one cousin i've repeatedly asked and she never responds...

I'm with you, Susan! I have a couple friends who do that... I've moved, they've moved, haven't seen them in a couple years and they send me junk. But when I reply with a quick update and ask "how about you?" I only get more junk!

You can tell me not to buy gas from certain stations, but you can't tell me if David is still playing hockey or if you ran that marathon again. Errr!

Boy, do I agree with all of you! I've had a lot of the same experiences and done a lot of the things you've suggested. (except for the You-Tube thing, that's funny!) It seems like as soon as somebody learns how to use a computer and how to e-mail people, that's what they start doing. It's the mark of a Newby.

I have a cousin that doesn't e-mail me at all anymore because I asked her to stop sending stuff like that. I asked her nice, in much the same was as has been recommended here. Lots of genealogy buddies won't e-mail me at all anymore because I don't want the junk. It's not fair! I'd love to hear from all of them, just not the junk. An old classmate just happily continued sending stuff -- from work, yet -- until I blocked her e-mails from coming to me entirely. She hacked me off. I didn't like her very much while we were going to school with each other. I stole her boyfriend and still she wanted to be pals. --Especially after somebody came along and stole the guy from me! LOL

I don't know why people get so insulted when they're asked not to send the junk stuff.

I've had to ask people to take me off their mass e-mailings. I will never understand why someone feels compelled to share every joke, cartoon, political statment or religous thought that comes their way with their entire address book.

I had one woman who repeatedly ignored my request to be removed from her mass e-mailings and finally I contacted her ISP. She sent me a nasty e-mail complaining that her ISP had sent her a warning, and I told her if she had honored my previous 3 requests to be removed from her spam I wouldn't have had to take the next step.

Since we all appear to have had someone that refuses to understand what they are being told..block them..thats what I did..that ended the forwards once and for all--the ones that I chose to keep,I never open if I have any inkling that it is *one of those* emails

Thanks Chemocurl, I just sent one. That is a great site.
So sick of those types of FWDs.

Is anyone starting to see that you can't be polite to these spammers? I usually start nice and get progressively firmer with the offender. I'll dispute the info in there, and link them to Snopes, suggest they should get their facts straight before bulk mailing, then go to the point where I'll take a contrary point and argue with them and get a little insulting to them, commenting how there should be an intelligence test to weed out stupid people from forward garbage all the time. One sends a political cartoon knowing it's not my political position? I send 5 back that get to them. And so on. Friends don't spam friends. And I make that clear to them.

And I'll send a link to stripmail for the ones who won't remove the leading characters on forwards. When you can't read the email because it's full of >>> that's a real peeve of mine. And I tell them NEVER forward an email. ONLY copy, paste and cleanup. I tell them not to be rude. If they're a friend they'd want to know if they have toilet paper on their shoe. Ya gotta show some tough love.