90% of the time I just hit “block sender” but sometimes an e-mail looks especially ridiculous or intriguing in the train-wreck sort of way, and I want to open it to see what’s being hawked. However, I don’t want someone on the sending end to count me as a “live wire.” I know the technology exists at some level, because I can see exactly when an e-mail I have sent to a colleague (within my agency) is opened and deleted on their end.
Is there a way to block sender in Outlook based on the portion of the e-mail after the @?
I get tons of e-mail from *****@karmiza.com and ******@shopathome.com, or something like that (the ****** part is always different). I’d like to block everything from a certain suffix with one click. This is easy to do in Hotmail, but what about Outlook?
Yes. A simple invisible hit counter can easily signal to the sender that you are an active email address. This is limited to HTML email, which is by default processed by Hotmail and Outlook Express. If you override the default and view all your email in plain text format only, then it is possible not to send any such information back. But for your scenario, yes the sender can find out.
Yes, there is. You do not specify which version of Outlook you use, so i shall give you generic instructions. Look for Tools/Message Rules or Filters/Mail then instead of a custom rule look for the Blocked Sender Tab. Just add the domain name karmiza.com (this is for Outlook Express). I expect Outlook 2000/2002/XP to have this option as a separate tab or integrated into the Mail Rules.
Also, i have noticed that if you use Hotmail and setup Custom Filters from Options/Custom Filters, then choose If Subject Contains <word> Send to Trash, and keep adding words like Mortgage, Insurance, Free, !!!, ???, Sex, etc… you can cut down your junk from 70 emails a day to 2 emails a day. Just keep adding words to the custom filters. Once you reach the 13th custom filter, the 14th one will automatically be available to set, so it’s not limited to 13 words. This is an amazingly effective method to reduce junk.
I find Mail Washer invaluable. You can set it to check your mail against lists of known spammers and kill it all on your mail server without your intervention if you choose. It will even send out realistic bounces if you want, very handy if that ex-friend looks you up.
Seriously, it is a much better solution than wrestling with Outlook and will work with it. You can also preview in plain text any mail that you are not sure of so spammers do not know you have peeked.
You do not need to be a geek to set it up and it is shareware but the creator understands that not everyone will pay, which endeared him to me so much I did
