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Gmail offers auto-unsubscribe feature for newsletters

New Gmail feature saves you the hassle of unsubscribing to newsletters you signed up for but later want to cancel.

Elinor Mills Former Staff Writer
Elinor Mills covers Internet security and privacy. She joined CNET News in 2005 after working as a foreign correspondent for Reuters in Portugal and writing for The Industry Standard, the IDG News Service and the Associated Press.
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Elinor Mills

Gmail Auto-unsubscribe gives you the option to have Google unsubscribe you from mailing lists. Google

Ever sign up for a newsletter and then regret it later and feel too lazy to go back to the source and unsubscribe? Well, instead of just marking the messages as spam and hoping the problem goes away you, can use a new Gmail feature to solve the problem.

Google has added an auto-unsubscribe feature to Gmail that will unsubscribe you from mailing lists that you may have signed up for but then decide you don't want after all.

The feature was being tested on Wednesday for certain Gmail users and was launched on Thursday and will be rolled out to all users gradually, a Google spokesperson said.

Here's how it works, according to a post on the Gmail Help site:

...If the particular message is a misuse of a mailing list you like to receive, you can "Report spam" as usual. But if you never want to receive another message or newsletter from that list again, click "Unsubscribe" instead. We'll send a request to the sender that your email address be removed from the list..

It will not work for all mailing lists and it can take several days for the request to be processed, Google said.

Also, Gmail won't display "unsubscribe" for lists that are known to be spammers so that you don't get more spam from them by accidentally verifying that your address is legitimate.

(via LifeHacker)

Updated July 23 9:10 a.m. PDT with Google saying feature launched Thursday, screenshot.