It’s worthless to do, as there are probably thousands of others that are just waiting for their program to cull my address.
I have Spam Blocker, but by default it’s still getting to me and I have to take time to deal with it. Isn’t there a way I can just outright block an entire server? The unsubscribe links don’t work normally, and for everyone that does, I get two more spams. This has to because the links are only to verify a working address. I never hit the link to get me to thier sites.
An example, I just got one from a dipshit@germanmail.com.
A filter, whether it’s in Outlook or Outlook Express, won’t prevent unwanted mail from coming to your PC. All it can do is automatically put that mail into a separate folder, so at least you don’t have to wade through the junk to get to your “real” mail.
If you truly want to block unwanted mail, you need something like MailWasher, which runs on top of Outlook (or whatever your preferred mail program is). This actually provides a way of bouncing messages back to the spammers so that it appears that your email address doesn’t exist. This will gradually get your email address off the lists, or at least a lot of them.
I haven’t tried it myself (I thankfully get very few spam emails), and it adds another layer to the process of getting your email, but if you’re truly plagued by lots of junk mail, it might be worth the effort. I’ve heard good things about it, and the basic version is free.
Not 100% accurate. You can assign the rule to drop the email directly in the recycle bin as opposed to another folder.
And, as far as Outlook (full, not express) goes, I’m fairly certain there is an option to “not download from server”…but I’m not 100% sure on that myself.
The junk mail filter in Outlook allows you three choices: mark the junk mail (like with a specific color), so you can find it easily in your Inbox, move the junk mail to a special Junk Mail folder, or move it directly to the Deleted Items folder.
Since this is POP mail software, not downloading it from the server isn’t an option. Before Outlook does anything at all with a message, it downloads it from the server. At that point, various mail-handling options kick in. But not downloading that message is not an option - it’s already been downloaded.
Outlook express has different rule-handling from Outlook - the latter applies the rules after downloadinhg the messages; the former applies the rules when the header lines have been downloaded and read, but before the body is downloaded - consequently, “do not download from server” is offered in Outlook Express’ actions, but not in Outlook ‘proper’.
Mangetout, please point me to the place in Outlook Express where that option can be chosen. I’ve looked, and I’ll be damned if I can find it.
I normally use full Outlook, and it’s certainly not in there, and I just called up Outlook Express 6, and perused its help entries on handling junk mail, and all it says is that you can set it to move unwanted messages directly to the Deleted Items folder.
If you think about it, leaving messages on the server is not likely to be a very effective tactic, since they’ll sit there forever. Eventually, you’ll reach the size limit on undelivered mail set by your ISP, and new messages will start bouncing back to the senders. I don’t think this is what you want to have happen.
I’ve looked some more, and yes, Outlook Express will let you leave messages on the server. This is intended to let you access your mail from several different computers. But it’s clearly not an effective way to deal with unwanted mail. It doesn’t actually “block” a sender. It just means that you’ll keep seeing that message in your list of incoming messages, waiting to be downloaded, and it won’t cause the message to “go away.”
(you can, of course, select multiple actions, so selecting the above AND “Delete it from the server” means that only the first few lines containing the message headers will be retrieved by OE (presumably into some temporary area to be discarded later) and the body of the message will not be downloaded at all.
Ok, Mangetout, like I said, you’re right - the option is there. But, also like I said, this offers no help to SeekingTruth in “blocking” mail from a particular sender. It doesn’t make the unwanted messages go away - they sit there, waiting to be downloaded, until they fill your mailbox at your ISP.
That’s all well and good, Mangetout, but how is that any more effective than letting the message download, and steering it directly into your Deleted Items folder? The net result is the same. Messages from that unwanted domain are going to keep coming to you, whether you have a filter that deletes them from the server, or a filter that moves them into your Deleted Items folder. Unless the messages are huge (in which case, waiting for them to download is a problem on a dial-up line), there’s no effective difference. You haven’t blocked anything.
The difference is minimal - you’re saving a bit of bandwidth and maybe protecting yourself just a little from virus threat.
But it sounds like the kind of blocking you’re describing would have to be done by your ISP’s mail server. Outlook and OE are just mail clients - they can’t control what the mail server permits and denies.
That’s why MailWasher intrigues me. It’s the only thing I’ve seen that actually offers some hope of getting off the spammers’ lists. The mechanics aren’t clear to me, but I gather it generates a message back to the spammer that makes his program think that the email address is invalid. Reminds me of those tone generators they were selling for your phone that would give out the “you’ve reached a nonworking number” signal, so the automatic dialers would drop your number from their lists.
I’ve read posts on other boards (yes, I admit it, I sometimes visit other boards - I’m so ashamed) from people who swear that, after using it for a while, their spam load began to drop noticeably.
It doesn’t happen automatically - you have to work at it. But if you’re trying to rescue your cherished email identity, rather than ditching it and starting over with a new address, it could be worth the effort.
My Outlook Express has as the very last oprion in actions: “delete from server”. I use that a lot, is that what you’re looking for?
That way I don’t even have to waste my time deleting it from my deleted items folder.
To use this option, open OE, go to ‘tools’, then ‘message rules’, then ‘mail’. Click on the ‘new’ button. In the first section, check the box ‘when the from line contains people’ and in the second section scroll way down to the bottom ‘delete from server’. In the third section click on the ‘contains people’ link and add ‘germanmail.com’ Hit ‘OK’ and "OK’ again, and it should be applied.
You can empty the Delete Items folder quickly by choosing Edit, Empty Deleted Items Folder. You can also go into Tools, Options, the Maintenance tab, and hit the checkbox for “Empty messages from the Deleted Items folder on exit.” Quick and dirty!
I never exit my email program, only when I shut down to install software. My computer runs 24/7 and my email program is always up.
I really get irritated even having to download spam, so the ‘delete from server’ option works best for me. You have to do it individually for each spammer, but most of my spam on my main email account comes from businesses I’ve dealth with before, not random spam. I protect my main email address, I rarely give it out. The majority comes from eBay sellers who think that just because Ive bought an item from them, I want to be on their mailing lists. I jsut delete their messages from the server, and forget about it.
If there was some way to generate a plausible-looking ‘bounce’ message in OE (and I suspect there is, using message templates), then it could be set up to work in exactly the same way as Mailwasher (which also has to look at the first few lines of the message, then deletes it from the server).
I suspect that Mailwasher doesn’t actually work anyway, as most spam has forged headers, so your ‘bounce’ message will either go to the wrong place or go nowhere at all (but in doing so will consume bandwidth).
Seeking: To add to what Boscibo said (and specifically referring to your desire to deal with certain ‘domains’) you should be able to set up a new rule that lists the domains in question in the ‘From’ field and request that they be ‘deleted’ from the server. Although POP3 doesn’t allow you to muck around on your ISP’s system to fiddle with mail it does let your mail program have a preview of the header information that was mentioned before. Thus you can actually have a look ahead of time and ask the server to trash any ‘domains’ because they show up in those very same headers. You can do massive swathes of damage to junk mail by ‘deleting’ Hotmail, yahoo and AOL domains…however the sad fact is that many people with legitimate mail accounts tend to use these systems as well.
Of course the spammers seem to manage to have their domains in a constant state of flux and without more rigorous filtering by the ISP or with something like Mailwasher (which I was never entirely happy with) you’ll still likely be getting reams and reams of crud.