NC and Gmail

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

Hi All

I hope this information can be found a home somewhere on the site. It would certainly have saved me some heartache.
For 18 months I have been receiving emails from my ex to my gmail account which I really didn't want to change. I have never responded but I have found it impossible to delete the messages without reading them, and reading them has somehow kept the connection alive and delayed my recovery.
Gmail allows you to block sender addresses but this puts the messages in the trash and it sits there for 30 days just waiting for a weak moment.
What I wanted / needed was to never know that the emails had been sent in the first place so that I could keep moving forward.

I recently found a post that explains how to do exactly this. It is a script that you can schedule to run every minute and it removes emails bypassing the trash folder.
In fact the script as it stands empties the trash folder so if you block an address and have this script running you will never see the email or know that one was received.
If you dont want to empty all of the trash folder you can use gmail filters to skip the inbox and put the message in a folder, the script can then empty the folder every minute.
There are a few details on the instructions that are no longer accurate but I found it easy enough to get working.
Here's the link:
https://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/107524/can-i-automatically-delete-emails-in-gmail-trash-matching-specific-search

Good luck everyone on your journey to recovery

[springtimecoming]

Hi All

I hope this information can be found a home somewhere on the site. It would certainly have saved me some heartache.
For 18 months I have been receiving emails from my ex to my gmail account which I really didn't want to change. I have never responded but I have found it impossible to delete the messages without reading them, and reading them has somehow kept the connection alive and delayed my recovery.
Gmail allows you to block sender addresses but this puts the messages in the trash and it sits there for 30 days just waiting for a weak moment.
What I wanted / needed was to never know that the emails had been sent in the first place so that I could keep moving forward.

I recently found a post that explains how to do exactly this. It is a script that you can schedule to run every minute and it removes emails bypassing the trash folder.
In fact the script as it stands empties the trash folder so if you block an address and have this script running you will never see the email or know that one was received.
If you dont want to empty all of the trash folder you can use gmail filters to skip the inbox and put the message in a folder, the script can then empty the folder every minute.
There are a few details on the instructions that are no longer accurate but I found it easy enough to get working.
Here's the link:
https://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/107524/can-i-automatically-delete-emails-in-gmail-trash-matching-specific-search

Good luck everyone on your journey to recovery

[I Am Redeemed]

Hi springtimecoming 

Thank you so much for sharing that. I was not aware that was possible. I do sometimes still get emails from my ex in gmail, but I don't check my account that often. I have a separate student email that I use for school, so the gmail sits and collects spam. I do still receive voice mail messages from ex, though, because even though he is blocked he can still leave a message. If it wasn't for a great therapist, those messages probably would have hindered my recovery as well.

How are you doing now? Have you seen a change in your ability to detach since you learned the gmail trick?

blessings and peace,

Redeemed