The present system and method for prioritizing email and controlling spam provides capability to determine the priority of emails received by an addressee. Such emails are designed to alert an addressee of its priority by the number of times the characters of the email address of the addressee are repeated. The present system and method include a coder/decoder that repeats the characters of an addressee's email address to reflect the priority of the email address assigned by the sender prior to sending the email over a network. The coder/decoder is embodied in software or instructions that are run on an email client or email server that count the number of times these characters are repeated. The greater number of repetitions, the greater the priority of the email.