I rarely, if ever, get spam in my Gmail inbox which is great. Spam filtering is probably the best reason to be using Gmail in the first place. However, most of the time I use Apple Mail to check my e-mail, and it has an unread count of all the spam sitting in my spam folder. When I glance at my inbox, I see two highlighted numbers: an inbox unread count, and a spam folder unread count. I wanted the spam count number removed because it was distracting me from my inbox count. Luckily, for those of us as pedantic as I am, there is a simple fix for this if you use Gmail.

We are going to create a new filter that marks all spam messages as read. That way, in your Apple Mail, Outlook, or even the online inbox, you won’t be bothered with seeing the unread count in your spam folder. Log in to your Gmail account online and click on the gear icon -> Settings -> Filters. Click: “Create a new filter” and in the box that says “Has the words” type: in:spam Finally, click “Create filter with this search.” I also check the box to have the new filter apply to the messages already in the spam folder.

Google will give you a warning, but it can be dismissed in this case. Now, the spam can mount up colossally in your spam folder, but you won’t see it or think about it and can simply focus on your inbox. Great!