Hotmail - full junk mail, lost messages

D

derng

I use a Hotmail account from within Outlook Express and/or Outlook. In the
past when the Hotmail account would reach 2MB I would go to the Inbox and
move messages off to a local folder. When the account exceeded the 2MB limit
it appeared to me that Microsoft would begin deleting the oldest messages
first, from the Junk Mail folder. Since I get so much spam the junk mail
folder fills up very quickly. I just move non-spam over to the inbox each
day picking through the junk mail folder like a monkey picking bugs off of
another monkey (what an utterly tedious activity that I have grown to
despise).

Today however it appears that Microsoft stopped delivering any new messages
to the account since it was over the 2MB limit. After moving messages off to
a local folder clearing space in the account it appears those messages from
last night and this morning are lost as only messages since clearing space
are now appearing in the account.

With the amount of spam I'm getting this makes the hotmail basically
unusable. Since the account fills up so quick it requires an almost daily
purging or messages will get lost. At one time I had filters set up to move
non-spam to the inbox but they have since limited that to those who pay for
the premium account. And even then I did not have the junk mail folder go
directly to the trash bin since there were always some non-spam messages
that were not caught by the filters. The main reason I have liked using
hotmail is that the address did not have to change when changing to a new
ISP.

Has Microsoft started closing the hotmail accounts when they reach 2MB or
was this an error that occurred just today? I am trying to decide if it is
worth paying them $20 a year for the ability to use filters and have 10MB of
storage or if I should just quit using hotmail altogether for anything
serious and use the ISP address with the knowledge that when I change ISPs I
will just have the problem of notifying all those businesses and
newsletters, etc. of the change. (Perhaps some people use this as an
opportunity to thin out their contact list - perhaps that is a better way of
looking at the problem.) Is there another third party service that people
use to avoid this problem? Maybe giving Microsoft $20 a year for the
formerly free hotmail account is going to be my best option. Any opinions or
ideas would be appreciated. Thanks.
 
K

Kevin

Have you used up the allotment of Blocked Senders? I don't recall how may
you can block, but it's quite a lot. You can also block mail from specific
domains.
 
D

derng

They put limits on it for free accounts. Hotmail help is not working right
now so I can't look up the exact number. Perhaps someone else can post that.
But as you know there is really no way to 'block' spam since they change
their e-mail address for each message. Filtering what you 'want' rather than
blocking what you don't want seems to be the only way once the amount of
spam becomes so great.
 
N

N. Miller

Today however it appears that Microsoft stopped delivering any new messages
to the account since it was over the 2MB limit. After moving messages off to
a local folder clearing space in the account it appears those messages from
last night and this morning are lost as only messages since clearing space
are now appearing in the account.

Hotmail has always bounced messages to an account over quota, so that is not
unexpected. As for paying for a Hotmail account, only you can decide. But,
if you do decided to pay, maybe you should look around. There are some
decent "spamblocked" accounts for a similar price.
 
P

PA Bear

Try using Hotmail's "exclusive" filtering option. Only mail from your
Hotmail contacts will go to Inbox.

Address Book: Tools>Synchronize now can be used to synch Address Book and
Hotmail contacts, plus Hotmail contacts can now import a CSV file of Address
Book. See the new page.

"Whaddya want for free?" - Hotmail Support (translation)
--
HTH...Please post back to this thread

~Robear Dyer (aka PA Bear)
MS MVP-Windows (IE/OE), AH-VSOP

Protect Your PC
http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/default.asp
 
G

Godpapa

derng said:
They put limits on it for free accounts. Hotmail help is not working right
now so I can't look up the exact number. Perhaps someone else can post that.
But as you know there is really no way to 'block' spam since they change
their e-mail address for each message. Filtering what you 'want' rather than
blocking what you don't want seems to be the only way once the amount of
spam becomes so great.

I think its something like 250 in the blocked senders. But that is of no
use as every spammer uses a false email address and even changinf one
charecter to the email address will defeat your filter.
 
G

Godpapa

derng said:
I use a Hotmail account from within Outlook Express and/or Outlook. In the
past when the Hotmail account would reach 2MB I would go to the Inbox and
move messages off to a local folder. When the account exceeded the 2MB limit
it appeared to me that Microsoft would begin deleting the oldest messages
first, from the Junk Mail folder. Since I get so much spam the junk mail
folder fills up very quickly. I just move non-spam over to the inbox each
day picking through the junk mail folder like a monkey picking bugs off of
another monkey (what an utterly tedious activity that I have grown to
despise).

Today however it appears that Microsoft stopped delivering any new messages
to the account since it was over the 2MB limit. After moving messages off to
a local folder clearing space in the account it appears those messages from
last night and this morning are lost as only messages since clearing space
are now appearing in the account.

With the amount of spam I'm getting this makes the hotmail basically
unusable. Since the account fills up so quick it requires an almost daily
purging or messages will get lost. At one time I had filters set up to move
non-spam to the inbox but they have since limited that to those who pay for
the premium account. And even then I did not have the junk mail folder go
directly to the trash bin since there were always some non-spam messages
that were not caught by the filters. The main reason I have liked using
hotmail is that the address did not have to change when changing to a new
ISP.

Has Microsoft started closing the hotmail accounts when they reach 2MB or
was this an error that occurred just today? I am trying to decide if it is
worth paying them $20 a year for the ability to use filters and have 10MB of
storage or if I should just quit using hotmail altogether for anything
serious and use the ISP address with the knowledge that when I change ISPs I
will just have the problem of notifying all those businesses and
newsletters, etc. of the change. (Perhaps some people use this as an
opportunity to thin out their contact list - perhaps that is a better way of
looking at the problem.) Is there another third party service that people
use to avoid this problem? Maybe giving Microsoft $20 a year for the
formerly free hotmail account is going to be my best option. Any opinions or
ideas would be appreciated. Thanks.

I suggest that you use programs such as Hotpop [ www.boolean.ca ] or
something similar and use your hotmail account like a POP3 account. You
can than set your filters as you like. I use Mozilla with Hotpop to
access hotmail - just for the better junk filters...

You can also get rid of your 2MB limit hassle by not leaving messages on
the server.
 

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