Email

Spam Filtering

Outlook allows you to set the threshold for its own spam filtering to four different levels:

• Safe Lists Only
• High, Low
• No Automatic Filtering

The default is Low, which moves the most obvious spam to the Junk E-mail folder. In tests, this left about 25 percent of incoming spam in the Inbox.

To change the level of protection, click "Actions", then select "Junk E-mail", and then "Junk E-mail Options". Select the level you would like in the dialog box as shown here and click "OK". We do not recommend that you check "Permanently delete suspected junk e-mail...", as this will cause any message selected as spam, whether correctly or incorrectly, to be deleted immediately.

Adding Addresses to the Blocked Senders and Safe Senders Lists
There is no way of training Outlook 2003 to recognize messages as spam from their content. However, messages can be filtered based on the sending address. To add the sender of a message to the Blocked Senders list, highlight that message in the Inbox and click "Actions", then select "Junk E-mail", and then "Add sender to Blocked Senders list".

To "rescue" a legitimate email from the Junk E-mail folder, highlight that message in the list and click "Actions", then select "Junk E-mail", and then "Mark as Not Junk". This will move the message to the Inbox and add the sender to the Safe Senders list.

Allowing Mail by Recipient
For newsletters, mailing lists and similar bulk mailings Outlook allows you to add receiving addresses to the Safe Recipients list. Highlight the message in the Junk E-mail message list and click "Actions", then select "Junk E-mail", and then "Add Recipient to Safe Recipients List". This will prevent any message sent from that address from being filtered to the Junk E-mail folder.

Coping with Spam Using Microsoft Outlook 2003 was written by Jeff Balvanz. This document is available on the web at www.ait.iastate.edu/pubs/gag343/.