Hello Researchers and all...

I have Outlook Express6 for my e-mails and am currently running
Incredimail. Lately, I've been receiving a lot of spam in my mailbox.
I went to my  message rules but I can't find *block an unknown sender*
anywhere in the list.Is there another way I could block/delete these
annoying e-mails from entering my mailbox? I block the sender each
time before I delete them but new ones keep arriving. I get about 5 to
9 a day which is manageable but I'm going away for two weeks soon and
will have no internet access. I don't want to come home to a mess. I
use Windows 2000 and on DSL.Thanky kindly in advance :)

---

Request for Question Clarification by pinkfreud-ga on 27 Mar 2004 16:51 PST

Hi, Steph!

I am not familiar with the features of Incredimail. Does it have the
capacity to create a "whitelist" and a "blacklist"? If so, can you
whitelist your entire address book, and blacklist everyone else? This
would have the effect of blocking unknown senders.

---

Clarification of Question by steph53-ga on 27 Mar 2004 17:04 PST

Hi pinkfreud-ga...

I've never seen the whitelist/blacklist feature on Incredimail or my
Outlook Express...whats that?
BTY...I do have ZoneAlarm, Norton 2003 and Spyware Nuker running all the time...
I just need to know how to block e-mails from unknown senders...

Thanks...

Hi, Steph !

I'm an Incredimail user too - so here goes.

The ability to filter out Spam is a fairly recent addition to Incredimail, so
make sure you have the latest version of Incredimail - I'm using Build 1361 .

If necessary download from:

http://www.incredimail.com/english/download.html

"Note - There is no need to uninstall your IncrediMail before
upgrading. All of your personal data including email accounts,
messages, contacts, Letters, notifiers, etc. will remain unchanged by
an installation."

Now: go to Tools and then Message Rules (you had the right idea).

Click on "Add" at the top of the buttons on the right.

In the new "Message Rule" screen you will see the word "If" followed
by a box saying "please select one" and a small down arrow button.
Click on the arrow. Second item from the bottom of the list (just
above "All messages") is "Received from unknown contact".

Select that.

The next screen gives you various options as to what you want done
with the message, including "Delete it" and "Bounce the message to
sender". However you may prefer to create a special folder called
"Spam" and instead select "Move it to" and that folder. This will
allow you to glance through the folder once a week or so before
deleting, just in case it has accidentally filtered out an email from
your long-lost cousin or the first newsletter from your club.

You may need to add the details of any newsletters you do want to your
address book contact list.

Good luck.

WOW angy-ga!!!!!!!!!!!! It worked. I had no idea that there was an
upgrade to Incredimail. I have now set up my rule that all mail from
unknown senders will be deleted. Thanks so very much.

steph53-ga:

You only get 5-9 spam messages a day? I think I get at least three
times that many per hour! But then again, I'm not sure since very few
ever make it through my anti-spam precautions (I stress the multiple
in that).

What you may be looking for is called whitelist filtering. Basically,
if a sender is not on your 'whitelist', trash the message.

While there are several anti-spam packages available on the market
that would allow you to use this approach, the challenge is that you
need to have a comprehensive whitelist first. Most of these packages
start with your current address book, then let you add to the
whitelist as time progresses.

For the short term solution that I think you are looking for, consider
downloading and trying out the free version of Mailwasher
(http://www.mailwasher.net).

This standalone program lets you preview the messages in a safe manner
before you download them into OE6, and can easily implement the
concept of a whitelist filter. You would import your address book as
your initial friends list, then create a filter that simply says that
if a message sender is not on your friends list, delete it from the
server. Then, when you go to OE6, the message will already be gone
from the server, leaving you with only the 'good' messages.

As I implied, there are many programs (free and paid) that can be used
for a whitelist, but for a quick and dirty solution that you can
implement before leaving on your trip, this will do the trick.

Regards,

aht-ga
Google Answers Researcher

They upgrade Incredimail regularly - it's worth taking a look every
couple of months or so to keep up with the major improvements.