Ask HN: Has anyone used AI agent to unsubscribe from spam newsletters?

1 butz 2 8/14/2025, 5:21:45 PM
Hey everyone, has anyone explored idea of automatic unsubscribing from newsletters using AI agent in browser? I imagine giving an AI agent a folder of emails (probably mbox export of spam folder in mbox format) and asking it to unsubscribe from all of them. It would be interesting to see is AI agent could be taught to bypass all dark patterns used in unsubscribe flow, and even catch bad actors that do not provide unsubscribe link, and report them to appropriate authorities. Sounds like an idea for useful product. Has anyone done or are doing something similar? What are the potential risks and problems?

Comments (2)

duxup · 3h ago
I feel like the effort to get AI to do the thing vs the effort for an individual to just unsubscribe is out of balance in favor of the individual just doing thing thing themselves.

While email is an issue, I don't find unsubscribing difficult enough at the scale that requires automation like this.

thfuran · 3h ago
And given that they can be a bit erratic, I wouldn't want to run something like that on my inbox and see what happens.