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Email Guides and Essays
by Kaitlin Duck Sherwood,
including
Top
Ten Tips for Overcoming Email Overload
Top
Three Anti-Spam Filters
About Overcome Email Overload with Eudora 5
About Overcome Email Overload with
Microsoft Outlook 2000 and Outlook 2002
Frequently asked questions
Press room
About Kaitlin Duck Sherwood
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Sherwood's Top Three Spam Filters in Eudora
With Eudora 4, you can make all of
Sherwood's
Top Three Anti-Spam Filters. Unfortunately, they changed something
in Eudora 5 such that Eudora 5 doesn't notice spaces in filters. Fortunately,
there are some workarounds.
The filters need to be in this order in the filter list (don't worry,
that will make sense when you get to it). To change the filter order,
simply drag a filter to a different spot in the list of filters.
Whitelisting
I repeat that it is absolutely essential that you make a filter that keeps
all messages from people whose messages you want. In Eudora, this is
relatively easy.
- Go to your address book and create a new entry called "Whitelist".
- Add the addresses of the people you know and like. (Note that if you
already have an address book entry for someone, you can type in their
nickname instead of their full address.)
- Open the Filters window by selecting
Windows->Filters (Mac OS) or Tools->Filters (Windows).
- Click on the New button near the lower left corner.
- Put checkmarks in the Incoming and Manual checkboxes.
- From the pull-down box next to Header:, select
From:.
- Change the next menu from contains to intersects
nickname.
- In the box next to intersects nickname, type
Whitelist.
- Change one of the menus marked None (under Actions:) to
say Skip Rest.
- Press Command-S (Mac) or Control-S (Windows) to
save the filter.
Embedded Imges
You can make the embedded images filter in either Eudora 4 or Eudora 5
(and I believe earlier versions as well, but I haven't tested it recently).
- From the pull-down box next to Header:, select
<<Body:>>.
- In the box next to contains, type IMG.
- Change one of the menus marked None (under Actions:) to
say Transfer To.
- Click on the button to the right of Transfer To to select
where to move the message. (You shouldn't delete the message outright.
Instead, move it to someplace out of your way. When you have a spare
moment, glance quickly through the messages to make sure that a good
message didn't slip in. It happens.)
- Press Command-S (Mac) or Control-S (Windows) to
save the filter.
I haven't found any word in the English language with "IMG" in it -- except
for the city Primghar, Iowa. This filter will mistake any messages that
mention Primghar for spam.
No Real Name
Because Eudora 5 doesn't notice spaces in filters, in Eudora 5 you need to
configure your filter to look for From: lines without a "<" instead
of a From: lines without a space. This means that it won't catch
as many spam messages, but if your filter looks for
From: lines with no spaces, Eudora 5 will find all
messages. (Eudora 4 has no problem.)
What you need to do is almost identical between Eudora 4 and Eudora 5:
- From the pull-down box next to Header:, select
From:.
- Change the next menu from contains to does not
contain.
- If you are using Eudora 5, in the box next to does not contain, type <. If you are using Eudora 4, type a Space there.
- Change one of the menus marked None (under Actions:) to
say Transfer To.
- Change the menu bar that says ignore to unless.
- From the pull-down box next to the lower Header:, select
From:.
- In the box next to contains, type in aol.com.
- Click on the button to the right of Transfer To to select
where to move the message.
- Press Command-S (Mac OS) or Control-S (Windows) to
save the filter.
If you get messages from yahoogroups.com with no "real name", you should
add those addresses to your whitelist.
If you are using Eudora 5, you can add this additional filter to catch
even more messages. If a From line starts with "<", then it doesn't start
with a name, so do this:
- From the pull-down box next to Header:, select
From:.
- Change the next menu from contains to starts with.
- In the box next to starts with, type <.
- Change one of the menus marked None (under Actions:) to
say Transfer To.
- Click on the button to the right of Transfer To to select
where to move the message.
- Press Command-S (Mac OS) or Control-S (Windows) to
save the filter.
Tracking IDs
Eudora 4 can make this filter with no problems, but Eudora 5 has a bug
that makes this difficult.
Eudora 5 for Windows has a workaround for the tracking ID spam filter, but
Eudora 5 for Mac OS does not.
If you are using Eudora 4:
- From the pull-down box next to Header:select Subject:.
- In the box next to contains, type seven Spaces.
- Change one of the menus marked None (under Actions:) to
say Transfer To.
- Click on the button to the right of Transfer To to select
where to move the message.
- Press Command-S (Mac OS) or Control-S (Windows) to
If you are using Eudora 5 for Windows, here is a filter that will catch
three or four numbers (except for things that look like years, 2xxx)
at the end of the subject line. This won't catch tracking IDs that are
made up of letters, but it will find a lot of them:
- From the pull-down box next to Header:select matches regexp.
- In the box next to contains, type [013-9 ][0-9][0-9][0-9]$
(Note that there is a space after the first 9!)
- Change one of the menus marked None (under Actions:) to
say Transfer To.
- Click on the button to the right of Transfer To to select
where to move the message.
- Press Command-S (Mac OS) or Control-S (Windows) to
save the filter.
These filters won't catch all spam, but they will catch a lot of it -- and
they are absolutely free to set up.
For more help on catching spam, organizing your email, and other tips for
getting through email faster, get my book,
Overcome Email Overload with Eudora 5.
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