Creating Spam Rules for Microsoft Outlook XP (2002)
Our collective ability to use email efficiently is being eroded by unwanted, offensive, and unsolicited commercial email. Email users are bombarded with this spam everyday, but you can take some steps to help ease the annoyances.
The College of Engineering and Computing uses a Barracuda Spam Firewall to classify email from the Internet or elsewhere on campus as either potential spam, spam, or not spam (ham). Potential spam is marked in the subject line with a [POTENTIAL SPAM] tag and email that is almost certainly spam is marked with a [QUARANTINE} tag. Email that is not spam is left alone. Email with viruses or an extremely high probability of being spam is blocked outright, but if you notify helpdesk at engr.sc.edu quickly enough, we can retrieve a blocked message if there was a mistake in classification.
If you use an @sc.edu mail alias, email sent to it is being filtered through the anti-spam systems at UTS running SpamAssassin and using McAfee's virus scanning engine. SpamAssassin allows personalized filtering by assigning all emails a SpamScore in the header of the email. The score is represented by a repeated lowercase 's' appending "X-SC-MailScanner-SpamScore:" in the message header. You specify what level of spam you wish to filter.
This tutorial will show you how to setup rules in Outlook to automatically move these emails for you into designated folders. There are several ways to implement these rules. The following instructions are our most recommended approach. NOTE: There is no way to completely eliminate spam, but you can use several methods to help prevent it. After implementing these rules, some spam will still come through to your mailbox, and false positives may be filtered into your spam folder. You need to periodically check your spam folder to make sure that there are no false positives.
CREATING ANTI-SPAM RULES
Before you begin creating the rule, you must create a folder in your personal folders. (Please see Mailbox Maintenance for creating personal folders)
- Open Microsoft Outlook and create a folder in your Personal Folders named Spam.
- Follow the steps below for your appropriate version of Microsoft Outlook.
Outlook XP (2002)
- Open Outlook 2002, and select Tools on the menu bar, and Select Rules Wizard...
- In the Rules Wizard window, create a new rule by clicking New...
- In the Rules Wizard window, select Start from a blank rule and Check messages when they arrive, and then click Next.
- In the "Which condition(s) do.." list box, scroll down the list for the check box "with specific words in the message header" condition, and check it.
- In the Rule Description box, click on specific words.
- Type [POTENTIAL SPAM] into the Search Text window and click Add. Then, type [QUARANTINE], click Add, and then and OK.
- Click Next in the Rules Wizard window.
- Now you will select where you want the Spam to go. Check the move it to a specified folder check box. Then, click on specified folder in the Rule description window.
- Select Spam in your personal folders, and click OK. Then click Next.
- The next part is for exceptions. Having exceptions may be helpful for not filtering false positives, but is not required. Click Next.
- Make sure that turn on this rule is checked. Click Finish.
- Since you selected to move the spam to a personal folder, you will be prompted with a client-only message, just hit OK to continue.
- Once you are back in the Rules Wizard window, make sure your new rule is checked and hit OK.
NOTE: This is a client-only rule which means that the process will run only when outlook is running.
Be aware, some spam will still make it to your inbox. Also be aware that some of your email may be unintentionally sorted into the spam folders. Be sure to check the folder before deleting the emails.
SpamAssassin
As of 2/2006, the following may or may not apply to you - for example, if you have an e-mail address "YOURUSERNAME@sc.edu" in addition to your engineering e-mail address, you could be using University Technology Service's SpamAssassin spam tagging service.
For more information on spam filtering with SpamAssassin, click here.
