Stop that Annoying spam

Mail Rules

Outlook Express's little used 'Mail Rules' can seem awkward to use at first. The rules don't seem much use at first glance, but there are quite a few clever options available. To get you started, try the simplest rule to filter mail by words that appear in the message body (i.e. the general text of the email).

Create a rule to filter spam by 'words in the Message body'

1. Open Outlook Express.
2. Select Tools from the top menu, then click Message Rules, then Mail.
3. Select Mail Rules from the top boxes, if it isn't already selected.
4. Click New. You will see a range of options as displayed in the image below.
5. In box 1 (Conditions) - tick Where the message body contains specific words.
6. In box 2 (Actions) - tick Move it to the specified folder.
   Also scroll down the box and tick Stop processing more rules.
   (Important: This stops any further rules you make duplicating this action).
7. In box 3 (Description) - click on the text contains specific words.
   In the new box that appears, enter a word or phrase you wish to ban and click Add, then click OK.
   You can add as many words or phrases by entering more and clicking Add each time.
8. Then click on the text specified folder.
   In the new box that appears, click New Folder and type in "spam".
   It will create a new folder, or you can select one previously created by you.
   Click OK, then OK to close the box.
9. In box 4 (Name of the rule) - you can rename the rule or leave it as it is.
   Renaming it makes it easier for adding extra words if you have more than one rule.
10. Click OK for the rule, then OK to finish.

Include any words or phases that wouldn't be in your ordinary mail but appear in the spam (I think you know the words I'm on about). Use as many words as you like, but you must click 'Add' after each word added. You won't notice any loss of speed as a computer can check thousands of words in milliseconds.

If you make a mistake, you can go back at any time and edit or add anything to the rule, or if you get totally stuck, delete the whole rule and start again.

Here's what a Message Rule looks like (your colours may vary)

You'll notice that most words are part of website links or product names

The 3 main actions are:-
'Move it to the specified folder' or 'Delete it' or 'Delete it from server' (so it never arrives to you, but annoying doesn't work with all ISP's) try it and see!
Start with 'Move it to the specified folder' until you get used to the rules. Then later, you can alter this to 'Delete it'. After you've been using the rules for a while, you could alter this to 'Delete it from server'.

New box that appears for adding words or phrases

Words are not case specific, e.g. 'HELLO' and 'hello' are the same.

Send yourself an email to test it

When you have finished creating your first rule, send yourself an e-mail with a banned word or phrase in the body of your email, and see if it goes into the 'spam' folder that you've just created. If you've never done this before, just enter your email in the To: box. Wait a minute or so, then check your mail.

Each time you get mail that you don't want, look for a word or phrase that's in the message that would NOT be in your regular mail. If you can't find a suitable word, use the website link address (you don't need the www. or the co.uk bit). Then re-enter the rule above, click on the underlined blue words you've already banned and add some more words. You can add as many as you want. Eventually, you'll eliminate 99% of all your spam.

Creating a second rule to filter spam by 'words in the Subject line'

You don't need to do this straight away, but it comes in handy for some spam. If the spam consists of just images (and some do) use a word in the 'Subject line' such as a product name if there is one (ignore stuff like 'Pq6yTs34CdfX' as this will change every time).

Use the same method as the first rule, but tick Where the Subject line contains specific words.

Every week, check that there isn't any regular mail in the spam folder, then delete the contents. If you're satisfied that the filter rule is working, you could go back into the rule, untick Move it to the specified folder then tick Delete it. The mail will then be put in the Deleted folder which the contents are usually deleted when you close Outlook Express.

My actual rules use Delete it from server, so I could be getting thousands of porn adverts that never reach me (Note: this doesn't work with all ISP's). This is not my full list of words as most are unprintable. Note that spammers use dashes, full stops or other punction marks, a zero for an 'o', misspellings etc. to try and defeat your filter rules (and the professional spam filters).

Rules work from the top down. To stop all spam, you need at least 4 rules. One to block words in the Subject line, one to block words in the Message body and a Whitelist to block mail that is not from anyone you know, and a last rule to block mail that isn't actually addressed to you but you get it anyway. See the next page on Advanced Filtering.

There is some spam that doesn't include actual text in the message (i.e. they use an image of the text) or use text encryption. With text encryption, you may find that some banned words are still getting through. This gets more complicated to stop and I might cover this later. Try using words in the Subject line.

Blocked Senders List

This is of NO USE in blocking spam, but you may find a use for it. Mail sent from addresses on this list will not be accepted. This works if the mail is always from the same address (someone you don't like) but spammers generate a new bogus From address each time.

To add someone to your Blocked Senders List:

• Select the e-mail that is from the address you wish to block.
• Click Message from the top menu, then click Block Sender.

• Click Tools then Message Rules then Blocked Senders List.
• Click Add and enter the e-mail address you wish to block, then click OK.

Conclusion

This all seems a great deal of work, but once you get the hang of Message Rules, you'll wonder how you ever managed without them. There's a real sense of satisfaction when you've been used to getting 30 or 40 spam messages daily, then you find you get an odd one, once a month.

There is some more info on the next page for advanced spam filtering.