How Do I Ask Them to Stop Forwarding All Those Silly Emails?

I get several requests each day from mothers, daughters, fathers and sons, friends and associates about how to nicely ask someone they know, like or love (possibly you) to please stop forwarding emails they didn’t ask for or are not interested in. Unfortunately, there is no nice way. No matter how nice, how kind, how thoughtful they may be in asking someone to stop forwarding these “forward to everyone you know” emails, the forwarder will either have hurt feelings or get downright belligerent in the belief that they can do what they want.

Hence, this article. Now, I have an article that all the concerned site visitors who are in this dilemma can review and send to those who refuse to see the importance of their request. Simply click on the “Email this Page to a Friend” graphic at the top right of this page to send a link to this very article to someone you know who forwards everything under the sun and/or refuses to stop.

See, the problem isn’t really the forwards. It is how they are forwarded. Although the forwarders think they are being thoughtful, in fact they are being proportionality the opposite because they are not forwarding properly. See my article 5 Rules for Forwarding Emails for further details.

If one wants to be truly thoughtful, all one has to do is stop and think of the person on the other side — not just what you want to do or what will make you feel important at that moment in time. The three critical issues here are:

1. Forwarding to everyone in your address book. You can bet that everyone will not be interested in the topic of that email. So you need to take the time to choose who you forward to because you know they will be interested.
2. Not including a personal comment to the person the email is being forwarded to. Now, that certainly isn’t very thoughtful! If you cannot type a brief comment to the specific person you are forwarding to about why you are forwarding them that specific email, then don’t forward it at all.
3. Forwarding jokes and non-business related e-mails to another’s business email address isn’t appropriate. These type of e-mail should only be forwarded to personal addresses still taking into consideration number one and two above.

To all the thoughtless or naive uncontrollable forwarders out there, if you get asked by someone to not forward future emails, kindly respect their request. Don’t get hurt feelings and certainly don’t act like you have a right to disregard someone’s legitimate desire to not get emails they have no interest in receiving.

Know that those who make these requests still want to hear from you — they just don’t have the time or their email volume is such that extraneous forwards about silly, political or humorous topics that they are not interested in are what they no longer want to receive. This includes those chain emails no matter how noble the cause may seem — it’s probably hooey.

If you are sending unasked for forwards to everyone on your list, without comment, maybe you should be more genuinely thoughtful by being selective about what you forward and to whom. A good rule of thumb is that if an email says “forward to everyone you know, all your friends or everyone in your address book” it is best you just hit Delete.

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