Website Design · Web Hosting · Graphic Design · Brochures · Business Cards · Flyers · Internet Marketing · and more!

QuickTips: How to avoid SPAM without blocking useful emails

Using Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express

by Matt J. Whetham, November 2007

I’m sure we’re all familiar by now with the endless emails that come from anonymous or fake sources, regarding everything from pharmaceuticals to stock quotes.  These unwanted emails can often take up your time and, well, they’re just plain annoying!

Oftentimes spam blockers mistake valid emails that the recipient actually wants for junk mail.  This is because it uses a variety of search tests that will filter out what looks like an advertisement vs. what looks like personal mail, and the companies that send this spam out often have figured out how to bypass these spam blockers!  And, if you’re anything like me, you can’t afford to lose any emails by the misjudgment of a computer program because it might mean losing business.

Thankfully, Microsoft has set up a feature within its Outlook products known as ‘rules’.  Rules can be used to automatically direct incoming or outgoing messages that contain certain text within either the sender’s or receiver’s address, subject line, or message body to designated folders.  They can redirect these messages based on more attributes than I have listed here; however these are relevant in the context of preventing unwanted spam from taking up your time.  To give an example, one of the most popular recurring spam emails today is for Viagra.  An e-mail rule that you could set up to rid yourself of receiving these in your inbox would be to direct all messages that contain the text “Viagra” in the subject line or message body to your “Deleted Items” folder.

Here is how you can set up rules within your email program:

For Microsoft Office Outlook 2003
Go to the “Tools” menu and select “Rules and Alerts”.  Then, select “New Rule” and create your rule from the Rule Wizard.  For more help on rules, open Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 and hit F1 on your keyboard, then type in “rules” in the search box.

For Microsoft Outlook 2002
Go to the “Tools” menu and select “Rules Wizard”.  Then, select “New” and create your rule from the Rule Wizard.  For more help on rules, open Microsoft Outlook 2002 and hit F1 on your keyboard, then type in “rules” in the search box.

For Microsoft Outlook Express 6
Go to the “Tools” menu and select “Message Rules” and then “Mail”.  From there, you can follow the steps to create your new rule.  For more help on rules, open Microsoft Outlook Express 6 and hit F1 on your keyboard, then click on the “Search” tab and type in “rules”.