As an alternative to Gmail can I recommend Hotmail? I recently created an account and a nice feature is that all new email goes into the Junk folder by default. It was obviously designed by a misanthropic hermit, but the benefit is that your emails drop to almost zero. It's a bit of a bummer if you had a job opportunity or a friend tries to contact you, but on the other hand, fewer distractions.
Same. My very first email with them was deleted, because I was using it via POP3 instead of logging into the site. I should probably just self-host an email for junk, then I can remove the very last Microsoft thing in my life.
Crazy times.