Hi,

I was looking for a tool which would scan through my Outlook database
and consult an external database, for example, to qualify Spam and
clean up my old mail as I have been neglecting that for some time now.

I'm looking for a free or commercial solution, quality is very important.

Thank you.

-Mao

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Request for Question Clarification by keystroke-ga on 03 Oct 2006 05:48 PDT

Hello tinkywinkey,

I can tell you of a program that works flawlessly-- but with one catch. 

You must train it for a little bit before it begins to work. I suspect
that any spam-finding program will have to be "trained" in a similar
way.

Let me know if this program would suit your needs and I'll post it as the answer.

--keystroke-ga

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Request for Question Clarification by rainbow-ga on 03 Oct 2006 07:16 PDT

Hi tinkywinkey,

Please take a look at this program and let me know if it fits your needs:

Kipping?s SpamDeleter 
http://www.kipping.com/sd/index.html
http://www.kipping.com/sd/what.html

Best regards,
Rainbow

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Clarification of Question by tinkywinkey-ga on 03 Oct 2006 07:32 PDT

Hi Keystroke,

That'll be fine, I'm lazy, but I can handle a little bit of work in
the beginning. ;-)

-Mao

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Clarification of Question by tinkywinkey-ga on 03 Oct 2006 07:34 PDT

Hi Rainbow,

The application you listed seems to function by connecting to the POP
account and deleting the Spam emails there and then leaving the safe
ones in the main account so that the mail client can download them. 
Am I under the right impression? If so, this is not what I'm looking
for.. I already have my mail in the database of my Outlook mail
client.

-Mao

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Request for Question Clarification by rainbow-ga on 03 Oct 2006 08:05 PDT

I understood it as scanning the already downloaded messages. See here:

"The program will now open a connection to the mailbox(es). All
contained messages will be downloaded by the program. At this - the
messages will be inspected through predefined filters whether they
include ?Spam?-contents. If they classified as ?unwanted? they will be
deleted in the mailbox."
http://www.kipping.com/sd/what.html

Nevertheless, I will unlock this question for keystroke to provide you
with the program he has located.

Best regards,
Rainbow

Hello tinkywinkey, 

(And thank you, rainbow-ga, for allowing me to post this as the answer.)

First of all, go to this website:

Spambayes on Sourceforge
http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/

and download the Spambayes client from here:

Spambayes download
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/spambayes/spambayes-1.1a3.exe?use_mirror=kent

Once downloaded, close Outlook and then install Spambayes. Once
Spambayes is installed open Outlook (view the read me files if you
wish) and you will be presented with a screen. Choose "I haven't
prepared for Spambayes at all" then choose "I will pre-sort good and
spam messages, and configure Spambayes later"; then choose finish.

Now you have access to your whole mailbox again. I would advise you to
move all mail into a folder called "unsorted" (the reason why will
become apparent soon). Once done, move at least 100 junk mails (or as
many as you can be bothered to move) into the JUNK EMAIL folder and
100 NON SPAM (or as many as you have) into the INBOX. Once done click
on Spambayes within Outlook, then click Spambayes manager. You should
now have a new window pop up. Click the Training tab and click BROWSE
next to "folders with known good messages" and choose inbox as the
good messages folder. In "folders with spam or other junk messages"
click BROWSE and choose JUNK E-MAIL or your spam folder. You should
now have certain spam in the spam folder and not spam in the inbox and
those messages you could not be bothered to filter in the unsorted box
(doing this spambayes will not get confused and incorrectly mark junk
as good and vice versa).

Once this has completed click on the button marked "start training".
Your machine will now spend a while catagorising the mails you have
decided to learn on. Go make a drink and come back in 10 minutes.

Once this is done click the GENERAL tab and then put a tick in "enable
spambayes" box. This will enable Spambayes for future mails.

Now comes the time of testing.

Click close and click Spambayes within Outlook and then filter
messages. In the "filter the following folders" choose your "unsorted"
folder and ensure that "perform all filter actions" is highlighted and
then click "START FILTERING".

Your unsorted folder should be filtered for spam and good emails. Now
is the time to certainly go make dinner for yourself as this is going
to take a long time, especially with 4GB of emails :)

If you need any additional help or clarification of my answer before
rating, let me know and I'll be glad to assist you.

--keystroke-ga

Great application, gone through my email in a few hours of sifting
through them.. I have a few thousand emails to classify, but ut's an
investment worth every minute of it! :-)

-Mao

I knew you were going to mention Spambayes! I use it, it's definitely
a good tool. Th eonly issue I've found is that yes, as keystroke
mentions, it will take a very long time to go through 4gb of mail.
Also, I found that my start-up time for Outlook was longer when I had
Spambayes installed. Also, make sure to modify the option concerning
the delay between receiving and scoring a message; I used to put it at
1 second or something low like that, otherwise you'll have message
appearing in your inbox, and then disappearing at a later time if
they're spam. I found that annoying. Of course, this only applies if
you decide to keep it installed after doing your cleanup. Good luck!

Hello Mao,

Thank you very much for the five stars and the tip! :)

I'm glad I could be of service. Come back to Google Answers the next
time you need help.

--keystroke-ga