KB 91

How do I add anti-spam filters in Outlook Express?

Article:91
Created:2000-11-17 11:38:58
Categories:
  E-mail

Question or Symptom

I'm getting spam from XYZ Widgets Co. and they won't take me off their mailing list. How do a filter them out? I'm using Outlook Express to collect my email.

Resolution

Unfortunately, spammers are a pretty devious and deceptive group of people. The "unsubscribe" instructions they give are rarely useful (in fact, many of them use your unsubscribe message as an indication that they hit a good email address and it causes you to be added to more lists rather than removed from any). In general my advice is never to respond to spammers' mail.

Outlook does have some facilities for filtering mail, so you can automatically junk all the messages from that site. Below are some notes on doing that.

The information in this article applies to:

    Microsoft Outlook Express versions 4.0, 4.01 for Windows 95 
    Microsoft Outlook Express versions 4.0, 4.01 for Windows NT 4.0 
    Microsoft Windows 98
 

SUMMARY

This article describes how to configure the Microsoft Outlook Express Inbox Assistant to filter and sort e-mail messages, including unwanted messages.

MORE INFORMATION

You can configure the Outlook Express Inbox Assistant to use rules to filter and sort e-mail messages to prevent delivery of messages to the Inbox that meet certain criteria, including unwanted messages such as solicitations. To prevent unwanted e-mail messages from being delivered to your Inbox, the rules must be based on common criteria that is present in the unwanted messages. You can then choose to not have these messages downloaded from the server, the messages can be moved to a folder other than the Inbox, or the messages can be deleted from the server.

 Create Inbox Assistant Rules
 
 To create Inbox Assistant rules, follow these steps: 
 
     1. On the Tools menu, click Inbox Assistant. 
 
     2. Click Add, and then type appropriate text under "When a message
        arrives with the following criteria." The Subject line that matches
        the criteria that is common to the unwanted messages.  
 
        NOTE: Any of the fields can be used. For example, type the word
        "Free" in the Subject line. Other words that may be common to
        unwanted messages are "Make Money," or "Offer". If you enter
        information in the To line, you must enter the e-mail name, you
        cannot enter a friendly name. 
 
     3. Under "Perform the following action" click to select the appropriate
        check box and if needed, select a folder or e-mail address for the
        action.
 
     4. Click OK. 
 
     5. The rule will now appear in the Inbox Assistant. Click OK to return
        to Outlook Express.
 
     6. Repeat steps 2-4 to create additional rules. 
 
     7. To promote or demote a rule, click the rule and then click Up or Down
        to the desired position.
 

For information about Inbox Assistant in Outlook Express, click Help Topics on the Help menu, click the Index tab, type "inbox assistant" (without quotation marks), click the "Inbox Assistant" topic, and then click Display.

For additional information about using Inbox Assistant with a mail account based on the Internet Mail Access Protocol (IMAP), please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

NOTE: Inbox Assistant Rules only work with the POP protocol, not with IMAP.

You may also want to consider enabling server side filtering with out anti-spam filters, found at:

 https://kumo.swcp.com/spam

Related URLS

 https://kumo.swcp.com/spam/