Any frustrated person would want to skip the process of explaining why he or she wants to opt-out and it shouldn’t be a mandatory step. In total, this unconventional process will require a 2 to 3-clicks to unsubscribe from the mailers.

Solution: One-click unsubscribe

Unsubscribing should be made as easy as subscribing to mails. Anyone who decides to opt-out from mailers should be provided with a “one-click unsubscribe” button or a link that is also easy-to-find. As a user, I find it annoying when it is difficult to find the link and often end up marking the mail as spam instead so it gets filtered out next time even before it could reach my inbox.

Thankfully, there are a handful number of brands that do provide one-click unsubscribe link that is often easy to find as well. I genuinely feel thankful and forgive the brand for spamming my inbox when they make my experience delightful. But the opposite when I find brands using sneaky tactics to make my unsubscribe experience miserable.

LinkedIn, which was once infamous for spamming users, has incorporated an easy-to-find one-click link that unsubscribes users (from a specific category) right away.

They also include a “Subscribe Again” option in case the user accidentally clicked on the link or decides to opt-in once again.

Problem with one-click unsubscribe

Curious to understand the underlying implications of using a one-click unsubscribe link, I did a quick research — the problem is that most email providers incorporate a security feature that runs behind the scenes to find all links in the mail and performs automated clicks to scan for any possible threat even before the mail is delivered to user’s inbox. So, if the unsubscribe link is clicked during this process, the recipient will be removed from the mailing list as well as moving the mail to spam folder instead. This could be a lose-lose situation for both the recipient and the sender with the latter being affected the most. Some users might not want to miss out updates from legitimate mailers.

Solution to the one-click unsubscribe problem

Behold, “List-Unsubscribe”!

Senders can add this to the email as “Headers” to signal the anti-spam or anti-phishing software that the link is used for the purpose of “one-click unsubscription” — which will be invisible to the recipients unless they look up for it.

It is a standard header (RFC8058) that will be recognized by the email service providers. Below is an excerpt from the official documentation:

A mail sender that wishes to enable one-click unsubscriptions places one List-Unsubscribe header field and one List-Unsubscribe-Post header field in the message. The List-Unsubscribe header field MUST contain one HTTPS URI. It MAY contain other non-HTTP/S URIs such as MAILTO:. The List-Unsubscribe-Post header MUST contain the single key/value pair “List-Unsubscribe=One-Click”.

The inclusion of List-Unsubscribe in an actual email’s headers

How to implement the header is beyond the scope of this article and the process might differ from one service to another. But the point is, there are no more excuses to follow devious tactics and instead, spend the same time and energy in making the unsubscribe experience more humane and be trustworthy!