Mail Scanner

[Nermal]

Does anyone know of a mail scanning app, like MailWasher on Windows? Something to view the contents of your mailbox and remove spams before downloading them into Mail.

Please don't just tell me to use the filtering built into Mail, because it seems to always download the messages before filtering them - so I still have to wait for these supposed "Windows security updates" to come in before I can bounce them.

So, any suggestions?

 

[MisterMe]

Re: Mail Scanner

Originally posted by Nermal
Does anyone know of a mail scanning app, like MailWasher on Windows? Something to view the contents of your mailbox and remove spams before downloading them into Mail.

Please don't just tell me to use the filtering built into Mail, because it seems to always download the messages before filtering them - so I still have to wait for these supposed "Windows security updates" to come in before I can bounce them.

So, any suggestions?

It doesn't matter what the physical location of a file is if your application can read it. A mail server does not serve as a glass wall between your mail and your computer.

 

[Nermal]

I'm not sure you know what I mean. I want something that lets me see what messages are on the server, without having to download them. I should then be able to delete them from the server without having to download them into Mail (which can take quite a while if I've received several viruses that day).

MailWasher is excellent and does exactly what I want, but it's only available on Windows

 

[mumbo]

Mailwasher Mac

There is a nice solution, actually.
Mailwasher does come for Mac, but unfortunately it's not as smooth as the Windows version and not worth paying for IMO, but I did find a way of doing the same thing (checking mail that is on the server and deleting what you don't want) within Apple's Mail app.
All you do is right-click on your Inbox icon in the folder list and choose Get Info (or type command - i). A window pops up that checks the mail server and allows you to remove what you don't want. It doesn't mark spam like MW but it's still awesome to have within the app itself.

 

[stoked1]

Mailwasher for macs

I'm not sure you know what I mean. I want something that lets me see what messages are on the server, without having to download them. I should then be able to delete them from the server without having to download them into Mail (which can take quite a while if I've received several viruses that day).

MailWasher is excellent and does exactly what I want, but it's only available on Windows

Yes, I've been using the excellent Mailwasher programme for Windows for years, and since switching to mac I downloaded a trial version of Mailwasher Pro, supposedly an upgraded version of Mailwasher for mac.

Unfortunately it was only half as good as Mailwasher for windows, you couldn't easily select a whole list of spam emails, the interface was clunky and difficult, typing D didn't delete the selected emails any more, etc etc.

And of cause now that the free trial has expired they want around 30 Euros to register it.

 

[dyn]

Please don't just tell me to use the filtering built into Mail, because it seems to always download the messages before filtering them - so I still have to wait for these supposed "Windows security updates" to come in before I can bounce them.

It only downloads messages when using POP3. In that case MailWasher does exactly the same because that's how POP3 works. Only when using IMAP mail stays on the server in both MailWasher and Mail. The other disadvantage is that both MailWasher and filter rules in Mail only work locally. I'm way too lazy to use something like MailWasher and I use more than one device to read my mail. I'm using filters on the mailserver itself which I can set up using the webmail interface.

Bouncing mail is one of the most pointless things you can do. Spammers do not use their own email-address, they use some random non-working address or someone else's working email address. By bouncing the messages you're only annoying other people and confirming your email-address is working. Spammers like that because now they know they you exist so they can spam you even more. The best way of treating spam is to filter them into a spam folder, go through them to filter out false positives and delete spam. Don't reply, don't click on the links and don't bounce them.

In your case the alternative is to learn how to deal with spam properly because you're not doing that now. It may have worked years and years ago but today it's the most ineffective way of filtering spam and it can be annoying to other people due to the bouncing.