Hackers view your email inbox as a treasure box. A report by Radicti states that email users send and receive about 347 billion messages a day. This means that your inbox is like a goldmine full of personal data.
Just think of all the information a person can collect; You have your online banking information, federal taxes, medical bills and emails on online purchases. By selling all this information on illegal forums, hackers can make a mountain of cash. Tap or click here to check if your email account has been hacked.
That’s why you should have ironclad protection measures in place. A common error makes it easy for hackers to break into this Pandora’s box of personal data. Be sure to avoid this fatal mistake!
Delete your email attachments as soon as possible
Think about everything you sent through your email. When you get a new job and email the hiring manager, you send paperwork along with sensitive information like your address and Social Security number. Although it should just be between you and the company, someone who breaks into your email address has free reign over everything you send.
There is much more they can find. That’s why you should delete any email with attachments that contain your personal information. Deactivation is a fatal flaw that can compromise your internet security.
This is an essential box on your spring cleaning to-do list
We get it: You have a lot of important things in your inbox. If you want to save anything, print it out and store it in your file cabinet. (Hey, that’s a surefire way to get hackers out.)
Remember: The longer attachments stay in your inbox, the longer it will take for hackers to root out your secrets.
That’s why we have prepared a guide to remove emails with attachments. Whether you have Gmail, Yahoo or Outlook, we’ve got you covered. Here’s what to actually do.
Want to clean up Microsoft Outlook? follow these steps
If you want to prevent cybercriminals from viewing your documents, pictures, and spreadsheets, it’s time to delete all large attachments from your inbox. Not only do they waste space on the mail server, but they can also spill some super private beans.
First, open Microsoft Outlook. Then, tap File in the top left corner of the page. Then, you will see the Account Information page. Scroll down, tap Mailbox Settings, and select Mailbox Cleanup.
Then, a new window titled Mailbox Cleanup will pop up. Here you can manage the size of your inbox. It also shows the types of items you can remove or move. It’s basically your one-stop-shop to free your inbox from personal data.
To find large email attachments, scroll down to the Find items larger than 250 kilobytes option. Tap on Find.
Next, you will see a second pop up named message: Advanced – Advanced Search. Tap on the header that reads more options. Here, you can filter emails without attachments.
Next, tap the box next to Only items with: and select one or more attachments. Then, select Search Now.
It lets you view each email with attachments and remove any compromising papers, images or spreadsheets.
Here’s how to delete your attachments in Gmail
First, open Gmail and click your cursor in the search bar at the top. To start shortening emails with attachments, type: attachment in the search bar.
If you only want to remove large attachments, such as PDFs full of sensitive paperwork, add the larger search parameter: 10MB. This addition means that you will only get results for attachments larger than 10 MB. (Of course, if you have even larger attachments, you can tweak that number.)
Rinse, lather and repeat until you have removed all the sensitive attachments that could make a hacker big bucks on the dark web. Once you’ve completed the purge, there’s one final step: Empty your Trash folder.
First, click the arrow next to More in the menu on the left. Next, select Trash. There, you’ll find every message you marked for deletion. Before you breathe a sigh of relief, it’s time to click on Empty Trash in the top right corner.
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