To use JUNK FILTER or RULES

[Phillip]

I have OL 2007 in a POP3 configuration.
I have thousands of "junk" email and I have created a list of "spammers"
that total about 400 email addresses. I have imported these into the Junk
Blocked senders list. This will be great for future emails.

The question is, is there a way that I can force the processing of the junk
blocked senders on email already in my inbox?

Or...Should I create a RULE with these addresses? Is there a way to add
hundreds of email addresses to a rule?

Thanks

 

[Ben M. Schorr - MVP (OneNote)]

Good news and bad
First the bad There isn't a good way to force processing of
messages you already downloaded UNLESS you left a copy on the server and
want to reconfigure your account again and force Outlook to redownload
the messages. I don't think you want to do that.

Now the good It doesn't really matter because blocking by e-mail
address is a lousy way to fight spam anyhow. Spammers just spoof new
addresses and use bogus addresses that they change faster than something
you'd change really fast. If a list of 400 spammer e-mail addresses
blocks more than 5% of your spam you're lucky.

You're much better off using the junk mail filter in Outlook set to High
and if that's not enough then maybe add a 3rd party solution like
SpamBayes (Google it).

Or check with your ISP and see if they have any filters on the
server-side they can employ to help you. Simple address-based
blocklists are generally a huge waste of energy for the very little
benefit they provide.

--
-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr, MVP
Roland Schorr & Tower
http://www.rolandschorr.com
http://www.officeforlawyers.com
Author - The Lawyer's Guide to Microsoft Outlook 2007:
http://tinyurl.com/5m3f5q

 

[Phillip]

Hey Ben,
I HAVE used SpamBayes in the past and it worked GREAT, until I got my new
laptop. I was having SO many problems. It may be time to re test and see it
the latest version works better. And its does not hurt that its FREE!

I figured out a way to kinda do it... I have seen several requested for how
to rerun the junk rules, so I am posting MY solution to that. Hopefuly it
will help others!

What I did...

I created a new contact folder, I exported the blocked senders list, then
exported a blank contacts folder, then in excel, I moved the exported list
to the excel contacts into the email column, (needed to change the NAMED
range to reflect the new addresses) and then imported that list of contacts
into the new empty contacts folder. I then created a dist list from all of
the spammers. then created a RULE that looked at this list, I did not accept
the list, but it offered to use the individuals from the list, so I chose
that (you probably could have added the individuals all at once straight
from rules, but....Not the way that I chose to do it)
So.... there is a fairly graceful work around. Only took me about five
minutes, once I thought of the idea. This is assuming somebody has and knows
excel. Most of the excel stuff is basic, but adjusting the named range is a
little advanced (see http://www.contextures.com/xlNames01.html)


As a side note, I created the list yesterday by exporting my mail to Excel,
then I used a countif to count how many emails that I recieved from a
sender, and anything that was greated than 4, I looked at the body of 1 or 2
and then if a spammer (or an emailer from a newsgroup I now longer care
about) I then marked them as junk Then imported those email addresses into
the blocked senders list

What had taken me MONTHS to do strictly in outlook, took about 1 hr of
cleaning in excel, then the importing and creating the rules probably about
20 minutes (besides head scratching time, tring to figure out how to relauch
the junk filter)

Now, I am dow to about 5000 emails in my inbox! I will now work on the
smaller count of emails

I will try spambayes again!

Thanks Ben!

Phil