Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Verizon is making it easier to block pesky spam texts sent by random email addresses. If you find yourself overloaded with these messages, you can now text “Off” to 4040 to stop receiving texts from emails altogether.
While Verizon previously let you turn email-to-text off through your My Verizon account, this new feature lets you switch off email-to-text messages directly from your phone. It’s worth noting that when you turn email-to-text off, you won’t receive any emails to your phone number — so you might not want to turn it off if you often receive legitimate messages from emails.
If you want to start receiving text messages from email addresses again, you can text “On” to 4040. You can also check whether or not you’ve enabled email-to-text by sending “Status” to 4040.
This new shortcut builds upon some of the existing protections provided by Verizon, which includes a call filter that alerts you to potential spam. You can also report spam texts by forwarding them to 7726 or by reporting them directly in your texting app.
