# Managing opt-outs

We highly recommend you to offer your customers a clear and easy way of opting out from your service, such as letting your customers reply with the word 'STOP'. Another way is to provide an email or web address in your SMS messages that your customers can use to opt-out from your service by entering their mobile number. It's important that you remove the number from your database as soon as you receive their notification.  

If you wish to manage your opt-outs via SMS, we offer two ways to do this:

* [Setting up an automated Flow](#h_01F9H15AHCMBK60X6Z6178T6V9)
* [Exporting opt-outs](#h_01F9H15FC355DMPWFTDWYN4S0F)

#### Setting up an automated Flow <a href="#h_01f9h15ahcmbk60x6z6178t6v9" id="h_01f9h15ahcmbk60x6z6178t6v9"></a>

If you manage your contact database within your MessageBird Dashboard, you can simply set up an opt-in and out Flow to manage subscriptions. Please see this article for further instructions: [Automatic SMS Subscriptions (Opt-in/Opt-out)](https://docs.bird.com/connectivity-platform/receiving-sms/automatic-sms-subscriptions-opt-in-opt-out).

#### Exporting opt-outs <a href="#h_01f9h15fc355dmpwftdwyn4s0f" id="h_01f9h15fc355dmpwftdwyn4s0f"></a>

If you manage your own contact database you can follow the below process to get an overview of which contacts have opted out. You can do this by exporting your received SMS for a given period and filtering your file. Below we will take you through the process:

**Step 1: Downloading an export of your (sent) messages**

Go to the [SMS Overview](https://dashboard.messagebird.com/en/messages/list) of your MessageBird Dashboard and go to the [Export tab](https://www.messagebird.com/app/en/messages/export). Select the period you want to check for opt-outs, set the message type to 'Received' and make sure you include 'Message Body' under extra fields, as shown below:

<figure><img src="https://675349995-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FUJNEE9TMK4fU91VKstBr%2Fuploads%2Fgit-blob-9e9a296868e7385b08da96ac0daa0cadb2e59555%2FScreenshot_2021-07-01_at_11.56.30.png?alt=media" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

&#x20;

Then hit the 'Export' button.

**Step 2: Filtering mobile numbers from the exported CSV file**

Open the CSV file in your favourite spreadsheet software, and start off by setting a filter on the top row. Select row number 1 and hit the filter button to enabled filtering. The filter button will look like a funnel, as visualised in the image below:

<figure><img src="https://675349995-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FUJNEE9TMK4fU91VKstBr%2Fuploads%2Fgit-blob-ca9e578cfcfcc556d397892f69d6dd0ad36db118%2Fexport-filter-en.png?alt=media" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

&#x20;

After you have enabled filtering, click on the arrow on the 'Messages' column. Then set a filter for the *Messages* cell. If you have a standard opt-out word for your customers, such as STOP, then you can filter for this. If you do not have a specific word for opt-out, search for words like stop, opt-out, cancel and other variations. Below we have an example of what this can look like:

<figure><img src="https://675349995-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FUJNEE9TMK4fU91VKstBr%2Fuploads%2Fgit-blob-5a91c8982235dc757eabfd3403c73b5f3b7f3662%2Fexport-filter-stop.png?alt=media" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

**Step 3: Managing your contacts**

Once you have filtered for opt-out triggers, you should have an overview of the contacts that no longer want to receive communication from you. You can copy the list of numbers to remove them from your own database management system.&#x20;


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