posted on April 29, 2002 12:15:27 PM
In the last two to three weeks, I have received more and more spam on my outlook express program. I use MSN for my email. Any suggestions to block all the BS??? I have never had this problem before.
posted on April 29, 2002 12:23:39 PM
I'd like to know, too! I have a local ISP, but I get about 300+ emails a day, and only 10-15 are wanted. The rest is absolute garbage - everything from porn sites to weight loss scams.
posted on April 29, 2002 02:26:38 PM
To block spam in Outlook Express you have to create message rules.
In OE go to the Tools menu select Message Rules>Mail to get the rules dialog box.
A lot of spam won't have your email address in the 'To' field, so you want to get rid of these.
Press the NEW button to create a new rule.
In box #1 check the box for 'Where the To line contains people'
This will add part of your rule to box #3. Click on the highlighted phrase 'contains people'. This will bring up the 'Select People' dialog. Enter your email address and press the 'Add' button. Click the Options buttons and click on the radio button for 'Message does not contain the people below'. Press OK twice to get back to the New Mail Rule box.
Select the options you want in box #2. I check the following options.
Move it to the specified folder
Mark it as read
Stop processing more rules
This rule will send any email that doesn't have your email address to the specified folder. You can have your rule send it directly your deleted items folder or, even, delete it off the server. That's a little to extreme for me. I set up a Spam folder with a subfolder for each rule. This allows me to make sure my spam rules are catching the right email. Once my rule has proven itself for a month or so I can change it to send the email directly to the trash.
You may be on some mailing lists that you want to receive that will be caught by the above rule. To prevent that, you'll have to create another rule.
For example, if Amazon.com uses a mailing list and you want to receive it, you'd create a rule that sends all email where the from line contains 'Amazon' to your inbox and stop processing rules.
Now you have to deal with email that is addressed specifically to you.
You can create rules based on the subject and/or message.
For example, where the subject contains 'Herbal Viagra' send it to a spam folder. You can do the same for messages when the spam has a misleading subject line.
After a while you'll develop a set of rules that will stop 99% of your spam.
Use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to put your rules in the correct order.
You want your rules in the following order.
1) Wanted mailing list rules
2) Unwanted mailing list rules
3) Unwanted personal rules
4) Wanted personal rules
If you're like me, after a while spam becomes fun. It becomes a puzzle. Every once in a while a piece of spam gets past your rules and you get to play detective and figure out how to stop it.
You can test your rules by using the 'Apply Now' button. You can set up some dummy folders and apply your rules to your deleted items folder. Your trash will have a wide variety of email and this will give your rules a good test. Once you do that check the folders to make sure your rules worked correctly. Delete the emails, modify your rules, and repeat until everything works like you want it.
This is not on the spam topic, but you seem to know a lot about outlook express.
Do you or anyone else know if there is a way either view your email from another computer or to have all email forwarded to another email account like yahoo if you are going to be out of town?
posted on April 29, 2002 02:54:58 PM
Mine is with the cable service and they already told me they didn't know what I was talking about. They haven't been real helpful but I do love the fast connection!
posted on April 29, 2002 03:05:11 PM
It helps if you do not post your e-mail address on the internet. For other ideas, take a look at this site:
http://bytebrothers.org/stopjunk.htm
posted on April 29, 2002 05:02:58 PM
LindaJean, you don't want to sign up for another web mail account as dadofstickboy suggests. What you want is a POP3 web client. Its like using Outlook Express but through the web. A free service that I use is mail2web.com -- Be careful though. Since this service actually interacts with your POP3 mail, if you erase a message, it really is gone! I use this service all the time to check my POP3 accounts.
posted on April 29, 2002 07:27:05 PM
Sun818--Thanks!!!
That is exactly what I was looking for. We hardly ever get a chance to get away since we are self employed, but when things slow down enough to allow it I didn't want my Ebay to keep me tied here and I had absolutely no idea how to check and respond to emails while I was gone. We are only talking about 2 or 3 days at a time, but you know how bidders can get if they don't get prompt replys.
