Reducing Junk E-Mail (Spam)

Other Spam related resources to explore: (Links will open a new window) The Spam Recycling Center Fight Spam on the Internet! Death to Spam: A Guide to Dealing with Unwanted E-Mail

There are a bunch of ways to control spam. Unfortunately, none of them work 100%. It is possible to reduce it significantly. You can either filter spam out of your mailbox by looking at the address it comes from, or by filtering on certain key words which are common to spams, such as 'viagra'. If you use outlook express, it comes with a very good filter utility that you can experiment with. Under the tools menu, look for 'message rules'. Mouse over that, and choose 'mail'. On this screen you can set rules for incoming emails. Click 'New' to create a new rule. The first box sets the condition for the rule, the second box sets the action taken for messages that meet the condition. So, for example, to filter email that contains the word 'viagra':    - Check 'Where the message contains specific words. In the second part, check 'Move it to the specified filter'.    - On the bottom, you'll see the sentence "Apply this rule after the message arrives Where the message body contains specific words Move it to the specified folder    - 'contains specific words' will be underlined, and so will 'specified'. Click 'contains specific words', and type viagra in the box, and click add. Click 'specified'. On the box that pops up, you can choose a folder to store messages in. You can choose deleted items, or some people like to create a new folder for spam, so they can check and make sure no legitimate messages get deleted.    - There are a lot of options on the filter. If you do a little experimentation, you can probably come up with a set of very effective message rules.    - If you don't have Outlook Express, most programs have some kind of filtering feature that you can use.