How to configure Eudora to filter messages

See also: Introduction Eudora (PC) Outlook 2000 Outlook 2002

1. From the Window menu, choose Filters

2. Click the New button at the bottom of the filter list

3. Enter the filter criteria as specified below. You will have to type in "x-perlmx-spam" in the Header box, it is not in the drop-down. The number of X in the gauge= section determine at what level messages will be filtered. Each X represents a 10% probability that a message is spam. In this case, there are 6 X, so any message with a 60% or greater probability will be filtered. Sixty percent is a good place to start. You can tune it later if you find that too many or too few messages are being detected as spam. Make it more sensitive by using fewer X, or less sensitive by adding more.

4. Select from the action drop-down box: Transfer To for the first action. When prompted, choose "New..." from the Transfer menu.

5. Give the new folder a name, such as "junk mail" or "spam." Be sure "Make it a folder" is not checked.

6. Choose Skip Rest for the second action.

7. Close the filters window. Save the changes to the filters if prompted.

That's it. Any messages which come across now and are detected as spam will be filtered to that mailbox. Once a message has been filtered, you can see the "rules" which triggered the spam detection. Open the message, and look at the x-perlmx-spam header. The header does not show in the preview mode, you have to double-click the message to open it.

Sample message header:

Some of the rule names are obvious as to what they mean, others (such as excuse_14) will be more ambiguous. This message, which was advertising printer ink, has been detected in several different ways. A few of the rules violated are as follows:

cashcashcash - A message content rule, it contained the text "$$$"
to_malformed - The "To:" field of the message does not follow Internet standards
received_in_bl_spamcop_net - This message was sent by an address in the spamcop.net blacklist

False Positives

As discussed earlier, the spam filtering is never 100%. If you subscribe to commercial mailing lists, these messages will likely be detected as spam. If you have too many problems with false positives, you can simply remove the filter and deal with spam by hand as it arrives. If you only have a few mailing lists or senders which trigger a false positive, you can create a new filter for each of them to override the spam filter.

1. From the Window menu, choose Filters

2. Click the New button at the bottom of the filter list

3. Choose a header to match. For most lists, you can match either something in the From or Subject header. The match does not have to be exact, as long as it contains the specified text the filter will work. The only action needed is Skip Rest.

4. For the filter to work properly, it must be above the spam filter in the list. If it is not, you can click on the newly created filter and drag it up above the spam filter. Alternatively, you can drag the spam filter below the newly created one.

5. Close the filters window. Save the changes to the filters if prompted.

For questions or comments, please contact the help desk at 424-3020 or E-Mail acshelp@uwosh.edu
Academic Computing, UW Oshkosh