Using Eudora's Filters to Avoid Spam

[ Eudora Info | PGP Info | Home ]


Overview

Eudora's filter feature is a powerful tool to help you deal with spam. Using filters you can prevent all but a few spam messages from ending up in your Inbox.

The procedure I use is based on the fact that most spam does not have your address in any of the standard recipient headers (To and Cc). The general idea is that you catch all the mailing list mail and put it into appropriate mail boxes then put any other mail not addressed directly to you into the Trash or a mailbox you create just for Spam. I am going to use the Trash mailbox in the examples that follow.

Filter Mailing Lists

1. First you will need to make a list of the mailing lists that you are subscribed to. This includes mail received from your ISP and any businesses or websites that may have your email address on their customer contact lists. You will need to identify a common feature of all the messages sent from each sender. Usually the From: address is good. Be sure to use the email address, and not the name. Your list might look like:

List NameEmail Address
Eudoraeudora-win@wso.williams.edu
PGPpgp-users@joshua.rivertown.net
C|netdispatch@CNET.com
NewsSpotns@merc.com

The Bcc: Feature
If you regularly receive mail from someone who uses the Blind Courtesy Copy (Bcc:) feature then you should add their address as if they were a mailing list. Sending a message using the Bcc: feature results in a message that appears to have come from a mailing list.

2. Now you create a filter for each mailing list. I am going to assume you have created a mailbox for each list. Each filter should transfer the message to the appropriate mailbox then skip the filters below it. Eudora reads the filter list from top to bottom, applying every filter that matches. Eudora does not stop at the first filter that matches, so it is important to put "Skip Rest" as the last action in each filter so that Eudora will know that it is finished processing the message. Each Mailing List Filter will look something like this:

[screenshot of Eudora filter dialog]

These Mailing List Filters should be the first ones listed in your Filter Dialog so that they can catch most of the mail. If Eudora can filter most of your messages with the first couple of filters, then the filter process will be finished faster.

Trash All the Spam

The next step is to Transfer all mail not addressed specifically to you into the Trash or a Spam mailbox. I send such mail to Trash and review it there if necessary. You can do the same or construct a Spam mailbox instead.

The Spam Filter should catch all mail that doesn't contain your email address. The Spam Filter should look like this:

[screenshot of spam filter]

Multiple Addresses

If you use Eudora to retreive mail from more than one account, you will need to prevent mail from each one from being trashed.

  1. Create a Nickname that contains the addresses of all your accounts. The nickname might look like this:

    [My Addresses Nickname]



  2. Then create a filter that screens for messages that do contain a "Subject:" line (effectively all messages), but do not contain any of your addresses, and Transfers them to Trash. The filter should look like this:

    [Multiple Address Filter]

Notes

You should watch the mailbox that you transfer Spam into for a while to catch mailing lists that you may have forgotten about. Another thing to watch out for is messages that were sent to you using Bcc. You should add anyone who may send you Bcc copies of messages to your Mailing List filters.


Send comments to Anthony E. Greene.

[ Eudora Info | PGP Info | Home ]