Please don't forward me junk emails...

[VltGrantham]

What is the polite way to ask someone (particularly someone who is a client) not to forward emails to you that don't relate to business matters?

I have one client who is constantly (and I do mean CONSTANTLY) sending me emails regarding various social issues, etc.  They are usually of the "forward this to at least five people and copy me" nature.  And the "if you don't forward this email, you are someone who does not love God, your country, the American Way of Life, your Mother, etc."

I hate them.

Or they're slide shows of kitten pictures, jokes, etc.

I can't simply add the email address to my junk box because this person does sometimes send me information that I need to know.  But the emails are intrusive and annoying--particularly because I get so many of them per day.  And I need my request to be extremely diplomatic because this individual is very high up the food chain if you will.

[GreenBird]

Would it be possible to tell them to stop because you're not supposed to get personal emails at work?  Then it's nothing about them in particular, it's just that you're not allowed to use work email for anything other than work and you don't want to get in trouble. 

[Yvaine]

Would it be possible to tell them to stop because you're not supposed to get personal emails at work?  Then it's nothing about them in particular, it's just that you're not allowed to use work email for anything other than work and you don't want to get in trouble.

And depending on the field the OP works in, political emails could make her particularly vulnerable.

That said, if this person is high enough in the hierarchy, just deleting them and accepting it as an annoyance might be the safest way to go.

[portabella]

Yuck, how annoying,  In this case I think what GreenBird said will work.  But watch out – the person might ask for your personal email.  If so, I'd just say I'm not interested in that type of thing.

When email first became popular, a good friend used to forward all kinds of junk – (jokes, stories, etc.) to my personal email.   She had put me on a distribution list and she was obviously going nuts having fun with email, like a kid in a candy store.  I had to ask her – three times – to take my name off that list.   

[Wulfie]

OR, set up an outside email box (like Gmail or Yahoo) and ask this person to send them there. They still get to send them to you, and you don't have to do more than every once in a while go in there to keep the account open and delete them all.

[ShadesOfGrey]

Hello, Please take me off your forward list. Thanks!

OR

Dear client,

You may not be aware, buy my spam filter catches your emails and deletes them immediately. I'd hate to miss an important email from you because it got sorted into my junk/deleted folder.  Could you kindly take me off your forward list and send me only work-related emails in the future? Thanks so much.

[audrey1962]

What is the polite way to ask someone (particularly someone who is a client) not to forward emails to you that don't relate to business matters?

(snip)

I can't simply add the email address to my junk box because this person does sometimes send me information that I need to know.  But the emails are intrusive and annoying--particularly because I get so many of them per day.  And I need my request to be extremely diplomatic because this individual is very high up the food chain if you will.

Since this client is so high up, I would say nothing and simply delete the non-relevant e-mails.

However, if it was something that I think affects my work, I would go to my boss and ask her for guidance.

[TootsNYC]

You perhaps could say that you get so many emails at work that your in box gets hard to manage, and so you're asking everyone to send only work-related emails. And that apparently your email has gotten onto a personal list, so please would they take it off? It would help you a great deal if you could cut down on the things coming in to your email box.

[VltGrantham]

You may not be aware, buy my spam filter catches your emails and deletes them immediately. I'd hate to miss an important email from you because it got sorted into my junk/deleted folder.  Could you kindly take me off your forward list and send me only work-related emails in the future? Thanks so much

I think this will help.  They have realize that when they copy me in on stuff, this is a definite possibility.  Anything to stop the plethora of junk mail!

[Pippen]

I would hate that too. She is just like a spammer. Email is a much abused form of communication and you are busy enough without having to wade through an onslaught of junk. My 80 year old Dad has recently got a computer and my cousin sends him countless jokes and clogs up his inbox which he has enough trouble managing. 2 days ago I had to delete 600 messages from her in in among all the dross was some important ones he had not read. Very frustrating.

[cicero]

urgh i hate that.

I once said to someone (not a client, but a then-friend) that our system is set up so that emails that appear spam-like automatically get sent to spam and i wouldn't want her *real* emails to end up in my spam folder. it worked for me because i made it about the "annoying IT guys" and not "the annoying emails that you send me"

i certainly would not give my personal email to a work-related client.

[wyliefool]

If none of this works maybe you could write a Rule for your email program that all emails from X w/ words ['funny' 'kitten' 'america' etc] go to spam.

I had to do that a while ago when the company was doing some sort of lame motivational thing for one dept, except instead of sending the emails only to that dept htey sent them to everyone. So I was getting these ridiculous emails -- W.O.W. --Work Out Winning -- Can you DIG IT?? -- or whatever and they made me nuts so I spammed them. Altho I must confess that first I sent a concerned email saying 'your account must have been hacked--I'm getting these strange and meaningless emails--thought you should know' 

[JoW]

I think you can write an Outlook rule that says:
If the email is from <pest>
And its NOT addressed only to me
then delete it.

That would be perfect if the client has a mailing list she sends this junk to. You will have to check your "trash" file daily to make sure its not deleting the good stuff. 

(The spam filter we use at work is very weak.  I use rules lie that to delete the frequent spammers the filter misses.)

[AnnaJane]

Evil me would send them this, and let Weird Al say it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPkSjtbL8Bw&feature=youtube_gdata_player

[Xandraea]

Evil me would send them this, and let Weird Al say it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPkSjtbL8Bw&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Hahaha this is great!