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General discussion

Outlook and Spam

Aug 21, 2005 7:31AM PDT

Recently I read about setting up a second inbox that you divert all emails from your "Safe Senders" to. But now I can't find the article, of course. This way, the original "inbox" still gets any new spam that slips through the filters along with Non-Spam emails that aren't on the safe-senders list yet. I've tried to find a setting to do this and maybe it's a "rules" thing, but I import my email in from Hotmail and can't access the Rules section. Any Ideas? thanks

Discussion is locked

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Spam filtering
Aug 21, 2005 8:50AM PDT

Outlook 2003 already has the second box, called Junk Email, built in. Go to Tools > Options > Preferences and in the E-Mail section, click Junk E-Mail. Here you make one several choices.

Remember, whichever choice you make here, the filtering is done by a dumb robot. Some legitimate mail will end up in the junk box and some junk will end up in the regular inbox. So be sure to check your junk box carefully every day before emptying it. I keep my setting on Low and the preview pane disabled (so that possible malware-bearing mail is not opened). It is then so easy to do my own filtering -- to make my own decisions rather than depend on some dumb robot -- and delete what I wish as I look through my inbox. I get a fair amount of mail from ''safe'' sources I do not want to miss completely, but not all of whose mail I want to read. I filter these based on the subject line.

Personally, I would never check the box to automatically delete junk mail. Who knows? You may someday get an e-mail from an unknown rich relative who wants to give you a million ? or perhaps some other mail that may be less valuable, but still of some interest to you.

Another thing many do is set up a completely separate account with a different address. Give out one address only to your ?safe list? and use the other for all on-line operations; most (but not all) spam will go into the latter. You can then also filter each of these, but the percentage of false classifications will be smaller.

Hope this helps

Frank

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re: Spam filtering
Aug 21, 2005 4:31PM PDT

Thanks for the response. I'm already using the Junk E-Mail folder. But you still have to right-click on new spam and label it as such.

The article I read talked about actually setting up a folder that would only contain emails from people on your ''Safe Senders'' list.

I remember it involved forwarding Safe Senders Emails to this new folder while ''unknown status'' emails went to the old Inbox folder (and items previously marked as ''Junk'' went to the Junk E-mail folder). I thought I saved the page, but I was rushed and didn't.

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Safe folders
Aug 22, 2005 8:44AM PDT

In Outlook, goto File > New > Folder. Create a new folder under Personal Folders with a name of your choice.

Then under Tools > Rules Wizard, click New under "Apply rules in the following order".

The Rules Wizard will default to ''Start creating a rule from a template'', and will highlight ''Move new messages from someone''. In the ''Rules Description'' window, click ''People or distribution list''.

In the next window either type a name, or select ''Show names from the:'' pull down list to display your address book or Contacts.

Back to the Rules Wizard, and click ''move it to the specified folder''. Select your new folder. You can also created sub-folders here if you wish.

Mark

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I use POPFILE.
Aug 21, 2005 10:11AM PDT

Look it up on google.com. It's what I use.

Bob

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POPFile vs. Outlook filter
Aug 21, 2005 6:03PM PDT

It seems as though you want a three-way classification -- safe, junk, and unknown. While the built-in Outlook filter has these three categories, it uses only two mailboxes; it either combines safe and unknown in the inbox, or junk and unknown in the in the junk box. You apparently want three mailboxes.

I have never used POPFile that Bob suggests, but it seems that it will do that, and let you have even more categories if you so desire.

It also seems that you don't want to bother identifying the first occurance of particular spam to ''train'' the filter so that it can later handle that sender or domain automatically. POPFile also needs to be trained to recognize particular spam and other categories, and I think any filter short of AI will also need training. The other downside of POPFile is that it is reported to be something of a memory and CPU hog, especially if it is heavily trained. See

http://email.about.com/cs/bayesianspamsw/gr/popfile.htm

My only other suggestion is that you Google spam filters and look through the dozens there for what best meets your desires.

Frank

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POPFile vs. Outlook filter results (My results)
Aug 21, 2005 10:15PM PDT

The Outlook filter leaked like a coffee filter. Spammers know to fake return addresses, alter topics and more to wipe out your filters.

With POPFILE (did I write its free?) I rarely see any of this after the initital training period and a my 'magnets' list is about a dozen items. The Outlook filter was some hundred plus entries and growing.

No comparison.

Bob

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A new form of Spam. (not again...)
Aug 22, 2005 9:24AM PDT

Imagine you get an email from your boss (I'll note it's Steve Jobs). It asks you to drop all that you're doing and do (insert task here) at some link supplied.

This sort of new spam is quite amazing and outlook's filtering didn't catch it.

I'm been of the mind that email as we know is just about dead.

Bob