What follows below may seem insultingly obvious. It is not meant to be. Rather, this essay has come about after my seeing several peers needlessly put themselves at easily avoidable malware risk while deleting spam e-mails while using Outlook.
We all get 'em, don't we. The message Inbox fills up with scam e-mails, many of them packing malware, just waiting and ready to harm you and you want to get rid of them. To make the point, look at this list:
Are any of these messages legitimate? Maybe, but my gut tells me otherwise. Just for a few examples, I don't have any subscription service with Microsoft, I have never ridden on a Metro-North train, I never sent out any "request for quote", there have been no transactions for $799.99 or $649.99 and so on and so on.
I've heard this kind of stuff is called "click bait". It's supposed to excite or alarm the recipient into impulsively opening the e-mail. If one were to do so, it could lead to dire consequences. When you see stuff like this, do NOT react and do NOT fall prey.
Furthermore, when you delete this stuff, YOU MUST TAKE CARE NOT TO ACCIDENTALLY OPEN ANY OF THESE KINDS OF MESSAGES!!!!!
The worst thing you can do is place your cursor over any such message and click once to select it for deletion. If you do that, you WILL one day slip up and accidentally double click the mouse and thereby accidentally open the message you want to delete. If this becomes your habit, you WILL one day do a double click in error and don't tell me you'll be careful about it. To err is human, but if you err like this, forget about any divine forgiveness.
A safe way to get rid of any one message is to use the "Up" and "Down" keys to move the darkened display area onto the message you want to erase and then deleting that message by using the "X" function at the top of the screen. You won't accidentally open anything up that way. However, if you have a whole bunch of bad messages like shown above, you have the task of deleting the whole bunch and doing it safely.
One way is to repeatedly tap the "Up" key to move the darkened bar to the top of the group like this:
From here, you can get rid of the messages one by one by repeatedly using the "X" function over and over again until the whole group has been wiped out. There is no danger this way of accidentally opening something. However, if the group is large, repeatedly invoking "X" may get tedious and may take more time than you have the patience to spend.
There is another way which also avoids the danger of an accidental opening.
Use the "Up" key to move the darkness up to the first message as shown above. Then press the "Shift" key, hold it down and start tapping the "Down" key. Each time you tap, the dark area will expand line by line, message by message, like this:
Don't let go of the "Shift" key! Keep tapping the "Down" key and watch the dark area expand further like this:
While still holding down the "Shift" key, keep on tapping the "Down" key until the entire collection of messages is darkened:
Next, let go of the "Shift" key and press the "Delete" key. Here's what will happen:
The entire group of selected messages will get erased at the same time. BUT!!! (There is always a BUT, isn't there.) the messages won't be totally gone. They'll be in the "Deleted Items" folder where they will still be every bit as dangerous as ever so we're not finished yet.
The process in the Deleted Items list is a repeat of what we've already described. First use the "Up" key to move the dark area up to the first message, press and hold down the "Shift" key while you repeatedly tap the "Down" key to expand the dark area to cover the entire collection of messages, let go of the "Shift" key and press the "Delete" key. This is what you will see next:
Click the "Yes" button and you will have safely gotten rid of the bad stuff with no risk of having inadvertently opened something.
Make this process your habit. Do NOT regress. Do NOT relapse. You only have to screw up once to enter into a world of regret.
