Dealing with SPAM
DARMEDIA employs software on the server to analyze email messages as they are received to discern SPAM from normal email messages called SpamAssassin. This software uses a subset of twenty rules to determine whether or not a particular message is SPAM. We can adjust this setting from one to twenty depending on how much SPAM you are receiving. If the setting is at twenty, SpamAssassin will not flag messages as SPAM unless it finds twenty matches in the email message. If the setting is at ten, messages that match ten or more of the rules are flagged as SPAM. If the setting is at one, if a message matches a single rule, then it is flagged as SPAM. This means, the lower the setting, the more likely a message is to be flagged.
Click here to submit a support request to have your SpamAssassin setting changed.
However, due to the possibility that regular email may be mistaken as SPAM, SpamAssassin does not eliminate email before it is delivered to you. It simply marks suspected emails by adding a string of characters to the subject line before it reaches you.
If you are receiving a large number of SPAM messages on a regular basis, and you would like to prevent them from reaching your Outlook Express Inbox, we've created the following tutorial that, when combined with SpamAssassin will automatically move suspected SPAM messages from your Inbox to another folder, allowing you to see only messages that are not suspected SPAM messages in your Inbox.
Step One: Create a SPAM folder
Under the file menu, navigate to "New >" and click "Folder..."
Select your Inbox folder and type the name of the SPAM folder in the textfield at the top of the dialog. The name and location of this folder is unimportant. If you'd like, you can create this folder outside of the Inbox, directly under "Local Folders". You can also name the folder anything you'd like, but naming it SPAM will help you immediately recognize what is in the folder.
Step Two: Create a SPAM Rule
Under the tools folder, navigate to "Message Rules >" and select "Mail..."
If you've already created message rules, you'll see this dialog. Click the "New..." button on the right to create a new rule.
If you have not created any message rules, or when you click the "New..." button, you'll see this dialog. Here you will see four steps to create a new rule.
First, check the second box in the first set of check boxes. This tells Outlook Express to examine the Subject line of messages. Second, check the first box in the second set of check boxes. This tells Outlook Express to move the messages to a folder.
In the third box, we're going to define what Outlook Express to search for, and where to move the messages that match the string we define. Click the blue hyperlink that says "contains specific words". This will open a dialog to define what words will cause Outlook Express to move a message to the SPAM folder. Enter "*****SPAM*****" (without the quotes) into the text field and click "Add". Then click OK.
Next, we're going to tell Outlook Express where to put the messages marked with "*****SPAM*****". Click the blue hyperlink that says "specified". This will open a dialog to select the folder we created in Step One. Click the SPAM folder, and then click OK.
The last step is to name the rule. At the bottom, type SPAM Rule or something equally obvious. Carefully examine your new message rule and make sure it looks just like this image, then click OK.
Step Three: Apply the Rule to existing messages
In the Message Rules dialog (image in Step Two), click the "Apply Now..." button at the bottom of the column of buttons on the right. You will see this dialog. Make sure that your new SPAM Rule is selected. If you have created subfolders that contain messages marked by SpamAssassin, you should check the box at the bottom of the dialog labeled "Include subfolders". Then click "Apply Now" at the bottom of the window. Outlook Express will then example all of the messages in your Inbox and move any messages that have been marked by SpamAssassin to your new SPAM folder.
Click OK. Then click "Close" to close the "Apply Now" dialog. Then Click OK, to close the Message Rules dialog.
Step Five: Final notes
Congratulations! You've now completed the tutorial. From now on, whenever Outlook Express receives an email marked by SpamAssassin as SPAM, it will automatically be moved from your Inbox to the SPAM folder.
Periodically, you should delete all of the messages in your SPAM folder. Be careful, however, that you do not delete the SPAM folder itself. Click the SPAM folder, and then select all of the messages in that folder and then hit the "Del" key on your keyboard, or click the "X" button to move them to the Trash. Then you can empty the trash to be completely rid of all SPAM.