Dealing with Junk-email (spam)

This document will cover the following;

Blocking verses Making a Message Rule.

Create a Rule from the Message.

Create a Rule to block a Domain.

Using a “Stand alone” program to filter email. (MailWasher Instructions)

How strangers can obtain your email address.

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Blocking verses Making a Message Rule

Highlighting the offending letter in your Inbox, and going to the MESSAGE menu and clicking on Block Sender can block these. This will automatically fire email from that address directly into the Trash folder for deletion after downloading.

However, this does not stop them coming down with your legitimate email, and hence slowing the process. Blocking Sender is not the best option.

What you need to do is;

Create a Rule from the Message, this will delete email from an offending address at the Server’s end, before downloading.

Using Outlook Express:

1. Highlight the offending letter in your Inbox.

2. Go to the MESSAGE menu and click “Create Rule From Message”. See below.

3.

The following window opens showing you the address of the sender in the third section.

4.

Ensure that sections 1 & 2 are ticked as above and click OK.

That’s it! You have now made a rule for the address that had sent you the offending email. Any letter sent to you by that specific address would be deleted at the Server as you download your email.

*ATTENTION XTRA USERS! – because xtra marks spam emails with the word [SPAM] in the subject line, why not follow steps 2 – 4 and opt for ticking “Where the subject line contains specific words”, “Delete it From Server”, and type the word SPAM as a specific word in section 3.*

So are we rid of junk mail now?

Not in every case, some companies change their address every time.

Eg. Newsletter67@promo.com, newsletter68@promo.com etc..

So what can we do for these?

Create a Rule to Block the Domain.

The domain of the address is everything after the “@” in an email address. We can make a rule that will identify a domain and once again delete it from the server. There is just one caution however; by blocking the Domain you block every email using that Domain name. This is not usually a problem as most Domains are unique. Eg. Happygirl.com, moneymakers.net, meowmail.com, lovemail.com, etc…

But if you block the likes of xtra.co.nz, yahoo.com, amazon.com, or hotmail.com, you indeed block ALL emails that use those Domains.

1. In Outlook Express, go to the TOOLS menu and click on Message Rules > Mail.

2. Click New in the Mail Rules Tab.

3. Tick the same tick boxes as before for sections 1 & 2.

4. In section 3 click on the blue underlined contains people .

5. Type in the window *.*@domain.com ie. Replace the word domain with the domain you are wanting to block. Eg. *.*@promo.com, or *.*@moneymakers.net.

6.

Click Add, and OK twice.

All Done!

If you don’t use Outlook Express, search your menus for Block Sender. This will send them straight to the trash folder after downloading.

Using a “Stand alone program to filter email.

MailWasher - A NZ made Anti-SPAM email filtering program.

Picture this,

1. With your email program closed and MailWasher open, you push Check for New Mail.

2. A list of email stored at the server appears.

3. You tick what to keep, what to delete, what to bounce back.

4. You click Process Mail and your commands are actioned.

5. Your email program opens, and you Check for New Mail as usual, only this time there are no surprises.

Ideal for deleting large unsolicited attachments before they arrive.

Messages that you marked for deletion are deleted from the mail server. If you marked a message for bouncing, the sender’s e-mail address is automatically added to your blacklist, this will have the same rule applied to it every time.

Bounced messages look exactly like a returned mail message you would receive if you sent an email off to a wrong address. There is no way the spammers can tell it is not genuine.

Try Mailwasher. www.mailwasher.com or download an older free version 2b.28 from my site.

Bryan Fletcher.