mail on OSX

[rocko918]

I have been using the Mail program with 6 accounts but i am getting hammered with spam. It puts it in my junk folder but still get 60 to 100 a day. Is there a easy spam blocker on it? I have tried the rules but that does not work well at all. Should i switch to something else. If so what would you suggest?

Thanks

 

[BeoVir]

If you are pretty sure that what it's labeling as junk is junk then you may want to set it to automatically empty your junk folder everyday, i will look around for this setting in a bit.
Also you may want to find out which one of your six accounts are giving you the majority of the spam and see if your email service provider has any anti spam filters you can use before the mail even gets to apple's mail app.

 

[russed]

on the bottom of most spam there are is a link to request not getting any more. i know people say you shouldnt but on my hotmail account (yes i did use one!) i did it to most of htem and gradually over time i went from getting about 20 spam emails a day to about 1 or 2. it might work!

 

[wordmunger]

Mail.app is not the reason you are getting spam! Any e-mail program you use will deliver the same spam to you. Sometimes your e-mail provider has an option to delete spam at the server level -- that would prevent it from ever getting to your Mail.app inbox.

AFAIK, Mail.app's spam filter is one of the best in the business, so you're not going to improve your experience by switching to a new email program.

A lot of people reduce their spam by setting up a "private" e-mail address that they only share with friends. They have a "public" address that they use when they sign up for discussion forums, questionable Web offers, e-commerce sites and the like. Then you only check your "public" e-mail every once in a while, and be prepared to deal with spam then. You might even use a free Gmail or hotmail account for your "public" e-mail.

 

[caveman_uk]

AFAIK, Mail.app's spam filter is one of the best in the business, so you're not going to improve your experience by switching to a new email program.

It's not that good. I've found spamsieve to be better with even just a little training.

 

[BeoVir]

under preferences/junk/advanced you can set mail to automatically delete junk mail, I trust mail's filtering as I have had no real mail go in my junk folder in over six months so I have this turned on. Of course it comes down to i you trust mail. I don't automatically delete email of my server until 30 days after it has been sent, you might want to do this if you are afraid of mail being mislabeled, that way you can get a copy of the message from your server if its accidentaly deleted.

 

[rocko918]

Thanks for the comments, I will look at the junk mail preferences and contact my hosting company to see what they have.

Thanks again.

 

[AmigoMac]

It's not that good. I've found spamsieve to be better with even just a little training.

he said one of the best, not the superb and unbelievable filter now and ever ... I agree it's one of the best...

 

[jsw]

You might also want to look into JunkMatcher. It takes a bit more tinkering than most add-ons, but it is very powerful and, once trained, wicked effective.

 

[johnnyjibbs]

If the junk mail is going to the junk folder then the spam filter is working. If you are being sent spam, it will always get through to here no matter what program you use. You could set it to delete automatically but that's a bit risky in case you receive some legitimate mail that is occassionally wrongly labelled as spam.

I'd suggest the "Bounce to sender" option in Mail - select the emails sent from the address that appears to be spamming you the most, then select that menu option (ctrl-click or put on the toolbar). This sends a mail delivery failed message to the sender, which will suggest to the spammer that your email address is no longer active. Keep doing this and they may stop spamming you! Otherwise, change your email addresses to something else and try not to publicise them too much!

 

[wordmunger]

You might also want to look into JunkMatcher. It takes a bit more tinkering than most add-ons, but it is very powerful and, once trained, wicked effective.

Okay, so I downloaded junkmatcher. Hoo! You're not kidding -- that thing is hella complicated. I think I've got it working now, but I don't actually get much spam (10 or so per day), so it's probably overkill for me!

 

[wordmunger]

Just wanted to give a junkmatcher update for everyone following this thread. Just trashed Junkmatcher: WAY too many false positives, and it's not immediately obvious how to fix the issue. This program might be good for someone who really receives a lot of spam, but it's just not that big of an issue for me.

 

[rainman::|:|]

Mail does have a pretty damn good junk mail filter, it just takes a bit longer to train than others (but in the end winds up being more reliable). So it sounds like the spam is already going to your Junk Mail folder, why does this piss you off? Just don't look in there if you don't want to. Turning on spam filtering with your ISP means you will never know if it's deleting good messages or not. However, most ISPs insert a header into any emails it thinks are spam, and Mail automatically recognizes the header, so in a way, it's filtering the same stuff your ISP would-- it just junks it, instead of deleting it right away.

edit: by the way, those "unsubscribe me" links in spam may work for some spammers, but the vast majority use it to verify the address-- if someone tries to remove their address, it means the address is good, so they can turn around and sell it for higher than an unverified email. Often, you'll wind up with significantly more spam if you use these.

paul