Clean Email Reveals the Most Annoying Email Newsletters in 2025

Key Finding: Big Brands, Not Scammers, Send the Most Annoying Email Subscriptions

When we first analyzed our data, we expected to find obvious culprits: cybercriminals and shady marketing operations that disregard email laws and regulations like the CAN-SPAM Act.

It seems that legitimate companies have collectively crossed the line between helpful communication and annoyance. As a result, their emails are getting flagged as spam, and their newsletters are becoming targets for mass unsubscribe tools like Clean Email's Unsubscribe feature.

This trend could have two possible causes:

• The content of emails from major brands may have become less relevant or more sales-focused.
• The sheer volume of messages has reached a tipping point where even relevant content becomes overwhelming.

We believe it's largely the latter.

Recent studies put the number of emails people receive daily at around 100, creating a constant stream of notifications and demands for attention. An even bigger issue is that there's no escape from them - we get them on our phones, smartwatches, tablets, and, of course, computers.

The need for more peace and quiet has never been greater, and it drives people to take more aggressive action against even legitimate communications from brands they once welcomed into their inbox.

Companies People Mark as Spam the Most

By tracking which messages are most frequently marked as spam through our interface, we created a data-driven list of the top companies that users are the quickest to flag and push away from their inbox.

When you mark a sender as spam in Clean Email, you can instantly get rid of all messages from that sender, and you can do so across all folders and labels. This saves you from having to hunt down every message manually.

Additionally, Clean Email provides a consistent user interface for marking emails as spam that works across all devices and mail services, so you don't have to remember different methods if you use multiple email accounts or switch between desktop and mobile.

Here are the 10 biggest offenders:

What's striking about these results is that all the top spots in our list are occupied by well-known, established brands rather than obscure spammers. Tinder (with approximately 75 million users globally), LinkedIn (over 1 billion professionals), Uber (171 million active users), McDonald's (69 million app users), and Zocdoc (6 million patients) represent major players across dating, professional networking, transportation, food service, and healthcare sectors.

Curious to better understand why these particular companies ranked at the top of our email spam statistics, we dug into what the top 5 senders actually do after you click "sign up." This is what we found:

• Tinder quickly fills inboxes because new accounts are opted in to every category of push and email notice (matches, likes, profile tips, promotions) unless you drill down through Profile → Settings → Notifications to flip dozens of switches, as explained on Tinder's help page. The overload collides with a steady stream of scam activity: the FBI warned in April 2024 that fraudsters are using "free verification" links sent through dating apps to trap users in recurring charges. Faced with both volume and risk, many members simply hit the spam button to get rid of all Tinder-related messages.
• LinkedIn leans on what usability writers call "growth-by-notification." Job alerts default to daily delivery via both site and email, and every newsletter you subscribe to is mailed automatically until you unsubscribe. Wired has flagged this as a textbook example of aggressive default settings that benefit the platform more than the user, and how-to sites publish entire step-by-step guides for "stopping LinkedIn's annoying emails for good" because doing so requires drilling into more than a dozen separate toggles. That friction makes the one-click "Mark as Spam" option very attractive.
• Uber One campaigns pile up for two reasons. First, the path to mute marketing emails on iOS is buried under Account → Settings → Privacy → Offers and Promos, where you must tap the tiny word "here" to reach the unsubscribe screen. Second, the Federal Trade Commission's April 2025 lawsuit details a 12-step, seven-screen (and in some cases 23-screen) gauntlet just to cancel the subscription, charging Uber with using obstacles that "compound to deter and prevent" cancellation. Needless to say, users who feel trapped or nickel-and-dimed often retaliate by flagging every incoming message as junk.
• McDonald's supercharged its customer-relationship email engine when a January 2025 Digital Marketing Fund began siphoning 1.2 % of projected digital sales into app-driven CRM campaigns across five big markets. At the same time, spam-tracking site Spam.org lists hundreds of separate complaints tied to the sender address McDonalds@m.mcdonalds.com, and consumer-protection outlets like Snopes routinely debunk phishing promos that masquerade as McDonald's "exclusive reward" offers, which unsurprisingly cause many recipients to direct all messages from the fast food restaurant chain straight to the spam bucket.
• Zocdoc operates in a sector where missed appointments cost money, so its system fires an email seven days before a visit, another the day before, and a text three hours out - plus any office-specific reminders layered on top, as explained on its website. Even Zocdoc's own CEO compares doctors' schedules to airline seats and concedes that the industry has become "sort of potpourri of messages" in the chase to fill last-minute gaps. However, the resulting notification fog can make patients tune out critical info, and it can even cause some to mark all Zocdoc messages as spam.

As you can see, the pattern that emerges is a combination of default-on marketing machinery, hard-to-find opt-outs, and (in some cases) security or regulatory baggage that erodes trust. This "dark pattern" approach to email marketing may boost short-term engagement metrics, but clearly backfires in the long run. Users increasingly reach for tools that stop spam emails as their first line of defense against these tactics, rather than navigating buried preference options.

The dislike for these types of messages becomes even clearer when you compare these rankings with the sheer size of the biggest tech companies by active users. Internet giants like Google (5 billion users), Amazon (5 billion), Facebook (2.8 billion), and YouTube (2.2 billion) have vastly larger global audiences than our top offenders.

While these behemoths do appear on our lists (Google ranks 29th, for example) they don't rank nearly as high as companies that have embraced the dark side of marketing despite having much smaller user bases.

Most Annoying Email Subscriptions and Newsletters

While marking messages as spam is one way users defend their inboxes, deliberately unsubscribing is another clear signal that content isn't welcome. During Q1 2025, Clean Email tracked which senders drove users to use the Unsubscriber feature the most frequently.

With Clean Email's Unsubscriber, users gain better control over their subscriptions because it guarantees that the flow of unwanted messages stops for good, even when senders ignore your opt-out preferences. The feature also lets you pause subscriptions temporarily without fully unsubscribing, which can be handy if you want to reduce the number of messages you receive on average while working on a big project or maybe an anti-consumption challenge.

Our analysis identified more than 30 companies whose email newsletters consistently pushed users to take action. The table below shows the first 10:

LinkedIn and Uber appear at the top of both our spam flagging and unsubscribe lists, so it's pretty safe to say that they've truly mastered the art of inbox irritation (more about senders that overlap the spam and unsubscribe categories soon). We covered their aggressive tactics in the previous section, so let's examine three unique offenders that made the unsubscribe list but weren't among the most commonly spam-flagged senders.

• Instagram opts every new account into a long roster of marketing, security, and "feature" emails, and the only official remedy is buried several taps deep under Profile → Settings → Notifications → Email Notifications Instagram Help Center. Even when people find that screen, users report the switches often "won't stay off," forcing repeat visits or driving them straight to one-click Unsubscribe tools. Critics label the constant red-dot nagging and repeated "turn on notifications" prompts a textbook dark pattern designed to maximize re-engagement rather than respect attention. Instagram has tried to blunt complaints with "Quiet Mode," but that only suppresses push alerts and doesn't change email defaults. Meanwhile, scammers capitalize on the overload with convincing "new-login" warnings.
• Quora sends what one Redditor called "emails by the minute" because every subject you follow (even accidentally) spawns its own Personalized Digest unless you flip dozens of independent toggles under Email & Notifications → Subscriptions (there's no all-or-nothing kill switch). No wonder that Clean Email's own walkthrough remains one of the most-read pages on the subject.
• Spotify bombards both free and paid listeners with Discover Weekly promos, trial reminders, and "get back into your account" nudges. You can only opt out by hunting for the tiny "unsubscribe" text at the bottom of each message and then logging in again to confirm. Yet, community threads are full of people who still receive mail afterward, or who learn that security alerts can't be disabled at all. The brand's popularity also makes it a magnet for scammers who spoof official messages, so security advisories and phishing warnings add yet more inbox noise.

Whether the channel is professional networking, ridesharing, social media, Q&A, or music streaming, the same recipe drives users to Clean Email's Unsubscriber: default-on promotional blasts, preference pages hidden behind deep tap-stacks, and a steady rise in spoofed or security-themed messages that erode trust.

Transactional brands like PayPal, Spotify, Netflix, and Prime Video also rank high due to the specific nature of their outreach. Our data suggests users have little patience for messaging that constantly tries to convince them to upgrade, renew, or spend more money. When every interaction feels like it's designed to extract additional revenue rather than enhance service, subscription fatigue sets in quickly, and the unsubscribe button becomes increasingly tempting.

It's worth noting that smaller services like Wayfair, Shop, Hulu, and The New York Times still trigger a high volume of unsubscribes despite having much smaller user bases than tech giants like Google or Facebook. This proves that size really isn't everything. What matters the most is email frequency, relevance, and providing value instead of attempting to extract it.

Mark as Spam VS Unsubscribe: What Causes Users to Choose One Over the Other?

If you've been paying close attention, you might have noticed that some companies' messages cause Clean Email users to both mark as spam and unsubscribe, while other messages trigger mostly the mark as spam action or the unsubscribe action, but not both:

By looking at the notable examples above, an easy explanation presents itself: Companies that provide essential services or offer clear value tend to be unsubscribed from rather than marked as spam. Users want to maintain their relationship with these brands but reduce communication frequency.

This pattern makes perfect sense when you consider the consequences of missing important messages. With PayPal, for instance, users recognize that completely blocking all communications could potentially lead to financial losses, debt, or even legal complications.

Similarly, Amazon customers typically want to receive shipping notifications and order confirmations, but may grow tired of daily deals and product recommendations. Rather than risk missing a notification about a delayed package or refund by marking all Amazon emails as spam, they opt for the more surgical approach of unsubscribing.

On the flip side, companies in the "Spam Only" category tend to represent non-essential services. Sure, theoretically, you might miss notifications about your soulmate by blocking Tinder completely, but anyone who's spent more than two weeks on dating apps has become realistically cynical about the odds of "Someone new likes you!" notifications containing their happily-ever-after

McDonald's falls into a similar category. A discount coupon for a Quarter Pounder simply doesn't carry the same urgency as a PayPal security alert. While a 2-for-1 Big Mac deal might seem life-changing at 2 AM after a night out, most people aren't managing their inbox when hunger-induced desperation kicks in. Instead, they're making more clearheaded decisions about what deserves space in their inbox.

The companies that appear in both categories represent an interesting middle ground as their services are valuable enough that users initially try the more measured unsubscribe approach, but too persistent or annoying that they eventually escalate to spam flagging when unsubscribing proves ineffective.

Websites That Send Spam Emails Span Borders

The fact that legitimate, recognizable brands dominate our spam and unsubscribe rankings is further reflected in their geographical and industry distribution. Contrary to what you might believe, the most annoying email senders aren't concentrated in a handful of countries with reputations as spam sources like China or India.

Our spam statistics by country show the United States is by far the dominant source of companies users mark as spam, with 42 out of 50 companies on our top spammers list being US-based.

The dominance of the US makes sense given that many of the world's largest tech, retail, and media companies are headquartered there. The remaining spots are spread thinly across countries like France (La Poste-Colissimo), Japan (Nintendo), China (Temu, TikTok, SHEIN), Germany (HelloFresh), Sweden (Spotify) and South Korea (Samsung).

When we switch to our unsubscribe data, the US still leads with 26 of the 33 most-unsubscribed-from companies, but we see a more diverse international presence.

Chinese Temu and TikTok join the list, along with companies from the Netherlands (Booking.com), Canada (Shop.app), Sweden (Spotify) and Australia (Canva).

It's no coincidence that the industries generating the most unwanted emails, according to our global spam statistics align so closely with Clean Email's Smart Folders organization system:

• Messages from tech and digital platforms like LinkedIn, Google, and Facebook dominate both our spam and unsubscribe lists, and they can be found in the "Social Notifications," "Automated Messages," and "Messages from ‘no reply’" folders.
• E-commerce giants like Amazon, SHEIN, and Target are captured in the "Online Shopping" folder.
• Airlines, hotel chains, and booking platforms that consistently appear in our unsubscribe data are automatically sorted into the "Travel" folder.
• Financial services like PayPal and SoFi are contained within our "Finance and Insurance" folder.

The Smart Folders feature was developed by analyzing millions of real user actions in a privacy-friendly manner that fully complies with Gmail's privacy policy.

Additionally, Clean Email lets users further group and sort messages within each Smart Folder. For example, you can group the "Social Notifications" folder by sender and then sort it so that senders with the largest number of messages are at the top. This way, you can quickly identify which companies are flooding your inbox the most and then apply bulk unsubscribe actions to the biggest offenders first.

You can also take advantage of Clean Email's Auto Clean feature to set up rules that automatically mark messages from certain senders as spam, move them to specific folders, or delete them entirely without ever seeing them in your inbox. This way, you can essentially create a personalized filter that continuously works in the background to maintain your inbox hygiene, no matter which global companies are trying to get your attention.

What This Means for Your Inbox in 2025

As our spam message statistics and trends clearly show, you can no longer rely solely on automated spam filters to maintain inbox sanity. The biggest sources of inbox clutter aren't malicious spammers trying to phish you or infect you with malware - they're legitimate companies aggressively competing for your attention and wallet, such as LinkedIn, Uber, or Tinder.

To maintain an organized inbox in this environment, you need to actively avoid the worst mailing lists to sign up for, and you also need tools specifically designed to combat legitimate-but-unwanted email. Clean Email offers exactly that: smart folders that automatically categorize messages, powerful unsubscribe features that actually work, and customizable rules that prevent future clutter from ever reaching your inbox.

The best part? Clean Email works seamlessly with all major email providers, including Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, AOL, and many others. No complicated setup or technical knowledge is required. You just need to sign in with your email account, and you can start protecting yourself from the most common spam email domains.

Top 50 Spammers Identified by Clean Email in Q1 2025 (Jan–Mar): Full Report

Top Unsubscribed Senders Identified by Clean Email in Q1 2025 (Jan–Mar): Full Report