Mail – who needs it? Not me. And for 13 years I’ve been locked in an endless battle to keep my mailbox clear of any unwanted correspondence.

The struggle has paid off: I now receive roughly four pieces of mail a month. Most days, my mailbox is blissfully empty. When I do receive correspondence, it’s usually a heartfelt, handwritten note or a wedding invite.

Now, I’m sure you’re wondering how you can achieve my level of zen postal state. I’m happy to share tips, but be forewarned. You’re about to enter a world of endless deception, where any misstep (like making a purchase online, or signing up for a credit card) can set you back years in your quest.

It’s hard to say exactly what made me want to take control of my mailbox in 2013, when I was 23 years old. There was the wasted paper and wasted time the junk mail represented. But more than that, there was a simple principle at stake: I don’t want this stuff.

The fight to eliminate snail mail goes at a snail’s pace. But it can be done. Or at least nearly done – some mail simply can’t be avoided.

The first step is to choose your weapon: a spreadsheet. I have maintained a Google spreadsheet since 2013 recording the sender of each piece of junk mail, the destination (my current address in Brooklyn or childhood home in Manhattan) and how the matter was resolved – if at all – after I contacted the sender.

The first entry in my spreadsheet: American Express on Dec. 18, 2013. I listed the matter as “completed.”

The last: MoMA Design Store on Nov. 25, 2025. (More on them later.)

Typically, I like to reach out to junk mailers over email, but finding an address is often a scavenger hunt. Sometimes it is buried in legally mandated privacy policy pages on obscure websites. Facebook messages to the companies are also surprisingly effective. According to my spreadsheet, around 80% of companies acknowledge my request to unsubscribe to their snail mail.

I sometimes went as far as to ask companies over email who they purchased my information from, with very limited success. I must have asked Forbes 20 times how they got my address, and they were no help. But they did finally stop sending me magazines.

But some mail presents more complex challenges. For a while I kept receiving mail for a former tenant in my apartment. I tracked the tenant down using public records online.

I sent the tenant exceedingly polite emails sharing information on how they could have the U.S. Postal Service forward all their mail, (including the important detail that forwarding will need to be renewed annually). They didn’t respond.

So I called. The conversation didn’t last long. The former tenant only said “OK” and hung up.

How odd, I thought. Someone out there doesn’t share my passion for managing mail. Eventually, the mail for that tenant stopped.

I once began getting recall notices for the airbag in my super’s Subaru after I let him use my address to receive documents from the DMV. They came one after the other, a total of 13, according to my spreadsheet, which notes that I had to email multiple times to get the carmaker to knock it off.

When you commit yourself to reaching almost-mailbox-zero, you have to be persistent, and every decision is fraught with risk.

Any time you give out your address, junk mailers get an opening. In 2016, I began a separate spreadsheet to track the times I’ve shared my address to help me identify potential culprits. It has 192 entries. (In case it’s not clear, I like a spreadsheet.)

Online vendors will put you on their snail mailing list without consent. I learned the hard way that MoMA Design Store adds your address to their postal mailing list every time you make a purchase from their website. A nice little LED desk lamp I bought for myself last Christmas became a headache after the MoMA Design Store sent me a catalog, cluttering my mailbox. A customer service representative confirmed that I will need to proactively request to be taken off their mailing list after each purchase.

“Can you forward me being annoyed about this to the people who make decisions about this so that they know that it sucks? thank you!!” I wrote.

(MoMA Design Store, please reconsider this practice).

There’s also some mail you cannot escape. The USPS sells services like Every Door Direct Mail, which is responsible for those godforsaken letters addressed to “postal customer” or “our future customer.”

Confronted with questions about my quixotic quest, USPS spokesperson Xavier C. Hernandez underscored the post office’s obligations as a governmental entity that operates like a business.

He encouraged people to sign up for the USPS’ Informed Delivery service, which shows you a scanned image of almost every letter destined for your mailbox each morning.

“The United States Postal Service is an independent federal establishment, mandated to be self-financing and to serve every American community through the affordable, reliable and secure delivery of mail and packages to more than 170 million addresses six and often seven days a week,” he wrote.

That’s hard to argue with. I’m not looking to dismantle the USPS. I just want a mailbox clear of junk.

A functioning postal service is priceless, so I can tolerate a few inescapable postcards from the local Planet Fitness each year. (They were entered in the spreadsheet as “ignored requests to stop sending” in the spreadsheet).