From gathering to gifting, decorating to donating, holiday schedules tend to fill up fast. The last thing anyone wants to do is deal with tricksters, including spammers and scammers, who aim to steal your online account information and money.

These con artists are pesky and persistent during the best of times, but during the holiday season their behavior is even more extreme. That’s why we have a dedicated team of Googlers who work around the clock to thwart these uninvited guests. We protect Gmail users from nearly 15 billion unwanted messages a day, blocking more than 99.9% of spam, phishing and malware. But malicious actors don’t slow down during the holiday season — they accelerate. In the past two weeks alone, we blocked over 231 billion spam and phishing messages, 10% higher than the average volume.

So to help you be extra vigilant this holiday season, here is a quick guide to the types of emails and the red flags to watch out for:

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