Crabby Office Lady

Junk mail is the bane of our e-mail existence and I get an earful every day about how much you despise it. While you can't completely hide from it, you can take steps to minimize its impact on your inbox.

Everybody sees a lot of it, everybody is sick of it, everybody wishes it would just go away. No, I'm not talking about Paris Hilton; I'm talking about junk mail. And, as you can imagine, I get a lot of e-mail myself asking me the best way to deal with all that nonsense.

Luckily for you, Outlook 2003 has a built-in Junk E-mail Filter to help you with this. And while nothing is 100 percent effective against spammers, phishers, and your great Aunt Cuthbert and her (apparently) endless supply of forwarded chain letters promising love, wealth, and 100 bottles of Veuve Clicquot, this filter is a powerful way to reduce the junk and soothe your temper.

What IS the Junk E-mail Filter?

In Outlook 2003, we introduced the new Junk Mail Filter, which sorts suspicious e-mail messages into the separate Junk E-mail folder. I like to think of it as a mailroom sleuth; a postal worker with ambitions.

Now, there are two main parts to the Junk E-mail Filter for Outlook 2003: The Junk E-mail Filter Lists and the built-in technology that evaluates whether an unread message should be treated as a junk e-mail message. Whatever is used, when something is flagged as junk (every e-mail message's naked-in-front-of-your-high school nightmare), it's berated, spat upon, and then promptly moved to your Junk Mail folder for you to review when you're good and ready to deal with such a ninny.

 Note   While there is no specific Junk E-mail Filter in Outlook 2002, Outlook can search for commonly used phrases in e-mail messages and automatically 86 these messages out of your Inbox and punt them to either a junk e-mail folder created by Outlook, to your Deleted Items folder, or to any other folder you specify. Read more about how to manage junk and adult content mail in Outlook 2002.

The filter lists: Path to a sparkling Inbox

In a word or two, the filter lists contain e-mail addresses and domains that you deem worthy of your Inbox. Regarding the lists, five of the most useful collections of e-mail addresses, here is what they are and what they do:

1. Safe Senders   This is a list of domain names and e-mail addresses from which you want to receive messages. In other words....SAFE. And since the filter assumes (brazenly, in my esteem) that people whose addresses are in Contacts and the Global Address Book are considered safe by you, they're considered safe by the filter, too.
2. Safe Recipients   This is a list of mailing lists or other subscription domain names and e-mail addresses that you belong to and want to receive messages from. Messages sent to these addresses will not be treated as junk e-mail.
3. Blocked Senders  I adore this one. It's a list of domain names and e-mail addresses that you want to be blocked. E-mail addresses and domain names on this list are always treated as junk e-mail or spam.

    Note   If a name or e-mail address is on both the Blocked Senders list and the Safe Senders, then the Safe Senders list takes precedence over the Blocked Senders list; in other words, better safe than sorry.

4. Blocked Encodings  This list allows you to block a language encoding or character set in order to filter out unwanted international e-mail messages that display in a language you don't understand. (While I'm here, can someone explain to me why half the population of Greece as well as Taiwan have been writing to me?)
5. Blocked Top-level Domains  Here's a list that allows you to block top-level domain names. Why waste time adding senders, one by one, when you can wipe out an entire domain?

That juju we like to do

Now, about that second one, the technology Microsoft Research has developed to sort useful, desirable mail from junk mail: This is based on several factors, such as the time the message was sent and the content and structure of the message. This filter, unlike the lists discussed above, doesn't single out any particular sender or type of e-mail message. Rather, it uses advanced analysis to determine how likely it is to be thought of by you as a junk e-mail message. Frankly, it's all a bit over my head but what I can say is, it works.

And listen, while the setting for this filter is on low by default, you can set it to whatever you like. And since Outlook doesn't automatically toss these suspect junk mail messages (unless you specifically customize it to), you can take a day hike into the junk mail folder, see what's in there, and make sure it is junk before tossing it.

Customizing the junk mail filter

Now, speaking of customizing...if you know me at all, you know that the "C" in my name could just as easily stand for "customizing" as for "Crabby." Most of the letters I get about junk mail are from customers who want to learn how to block this person or that person, or how to just delete the mail that goes into the junk mail folder permanently, never to have reached human eyes (or this set, at least) at all.

You can — and I want you to — customize the various aspects of the Junk E-mail Filter, and you can do it as you go. Below are a few ways to make sure your filtration system is getting you the cleanest, safest, most potable e-mail possible. The links at the bottom of this section will introduce you to other ways you can make this filter your own. So please, make use of them, will you?

 Note   To get to the junk e-mail options, on the Actions menu, point to Junk E-mail, and then click Junk E-mail Options.

• Set the protection level to a setting that's right for you.   By default, the protection level is set to Low, which is designed to catch the most obvious junk e-mail messages. To obtain the maximum protection possible from using the Junk E-mail Filter and other enhanced privacy features, set the protection level of the Junk E-mail Filter to High or to Safe Lists Only.
• Keep your Junk E-mail Filter updated Updates are available at Downloads on Office Online. Under Office Update, click Check for Updates.

   Note   You could just go looking for the junk e-mail update, but since we publish a new one almost every month, you want to be sure you're getting the most recent. Using Office Updates is the best way to ensure this happens.

• Quickly add an address to your Blocked Senders list  You get mail you just don't want to get: Right-click the junk e-mail message, and then, on the shortcut menu, point to Junk E-mail and then click Add Sender to Blocked Senders List on the shortcut menu. You can do this same procedure if you want to add the sender or his domain to the Safe Senders list, and you can also do it to add him to the Safe Recipients list.
• Permanently delete junk mail before you even see it  By default, Outlook will throw that junk mail into a folder called Junk E-mail. Don't care for that action? Tell Outlook to put it into another folder or, perhaps better yet, delete it permanently. But caveat emptor: Once it's gone, it's gone. If you've set the filter to High, you may end up missing e-mails you wished you'd seen. So be careful how you customize, cowgirl.

More information about customizing the lists:

• Add a name to your Safe Senders or Safe Recipients List
• Add a name to the Blocked Senders List
• Edit the Junk E-mail Filter Lists
• Include Contacts as Safe Senders

So please, take some time to read and learn about how to make the most of the work the fine folks at Outlook have put into making sure you're getting less of your recommended spam allotment.

Tip of the week

L.D., from Florida, sent me a tip this week about how to insert dummy text. She likes to have some text in her documents and Web pages when she's preparing to design them but doesn't have the content yet. She writes:

"To insert dummy text into your Word document, type =rand (p,s), where p is the number of paragraphs you want and s is the number of sentences per paragraph. Then press Enter, and voilà, Word will create the text."

A great one for all the dummies who want to read about the infamous shenanigans of a nimble brown fox and an unsuspecting dozing mutt (or purebred; who can really tell?)

"Junk is the ultimate merchandise. The junk merchant does not sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer to the product. He does not improve and simplify his merchandise, he degrades and simplifies the client." — William S. Burroughs

About the author

Annik Stahl, the Crabby Office Lady columnist, takes all of your complaints, compliments, and knee-jerk reactions to heart. Therefore, she graciously asks that you let her know whether this column was useful to you — or not — by entering your feedback using the Was this information helpful? tool below. And remember: If you don't vote, you can't complain.