Junk Email and rules

  • Thread starter Thread starter Paul Cook
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Paul Cook

Hi,

I have junk email set to low (Outlook 2003) and a few rules which move
incoming email to a particular destination folder depending on their
recipients
address.

When some spam arrives I get the junk email dialog saying its been
moved to the junk email folder, but it still seems to get routed to
the destination folder rather than left in the junk email folder.

Is there a way of leaving junk email in the junk email folder whilst
still putting legitimate email into appropriate folders.

I must be missing something - this looks too obvious to be an
oversight. Surely plenty of users want to do this?

Paul.
 
Paul Cook said:
I have junk email set to low (Outlook 2003) and a few rules which move
incoming email to a particular destination folder depending on their
recipients
address.

When some spam arrives I get the junk email dialog saying its been
moved to the junk email folder, but it still seems to get routed to
the destination folder rather than left in the junk email folder.

Is there a way of leaving junk email in the junk email folder whilst
still putting legitimate email into appropriate folders.

I must be missing something - this looks too obvious to be an
oversight. Surely plenty of users want to do this?
Click to expand...

It does indeed look very obvious to us the end users, but apparently not to
M$ and its beta testers. Basically, you are doomed and have to wait for a SP
that addresses this problem...

What happens is that OL first checks whether a message is junk or not. If it
is, then it moves it into the Junk folder (or delete it, depending on your
settings). From there, and only at that stage, your rules are applied. This
means that a message that has been found to be junk will be considered by
your set of rules. In other words, your rules have NO way to distinguish
between safe messages and junk ones. That, I actually find simply
unbelievable! Very bad design! When I think I went for OL2k3 because of its
junk filtering (which incidently is crap, but that's another topic).

Alan.
 
One man's meat, another's crap.

I find the Junk Mail rules work perfectly on my machine - I use the High
setting. It almost never catches legitimate mail and keeps the junk mail in
its junk mail folder. All other rules work as well.

How did you construct your rules and do you use the "stop processing more
rules" option?


--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. Due to the
Swen virus, all e-mails sent to my actual account will be deleted w/out
reading.

After searching google.groups.com and finding no answer
Alan Garny <[email protected]> asked:

| || I have junk email set to low (Outlook 2003) and a few rules which
|| move incoming email to a particular destination folder depending on
|| their recipients
|| address.
||
|| When some spam arrives I get the junk email dialog saying its been
|| moved to the junk email folder, but it still seems to get routed to
|| the destination folder rather than left in the junk email folder.
||
|| Is there a way of leaving junk email in the junk email folder whilst
|| still putting legitimate email into appropriate folders.
||
|| I must be missing something - this looks too obvious to be an
|| oversight. Surely plenty of users want to do this?
|
| It does indeed look very obvious to us the end users, but apparently
| not to M$ and its beta testers. Basically, you are doomed and have to
| wait for a SP that addresses this problem...
|
| What happens is that OL first checks whether a message is junk or
| not. If it is, then it moves it into the Junk folder (or delete it,
| depending on your settings). From there, and only at that stage, your
| rules are applied. This means that a message that has been found to
| be junk will be considered by your set of rules. In other words, your
| rules have NO way to distinguish between safe messages and junk ones.
| That, I actually find simply unbelievable! Very bad design! When I
| think I went for OL2k3 because of its junk filtering (which
| incidently is crap, but that's another topic).
|
| Alan.
 
Milly Staples said:
One man's meat, another's crap.
Click to expand...

Well, it surely is crap for me. No doubt about it!
I find the Junk Mail rules work perfectly on my machine - I use the High
setting. It almost never catches legitimate mail and keeps the junk mail in
its junk mail folder. All other rules work as well.
Click to expand...

Almost never? What does it mean in terms of percentage? Before installing
OL2k3, I used to have POPFile, which would correctly detect 99% of my junk
mail. Considering that I nowadays get more than 200 mails that is junk
(based on the last couple of days).

As I have said in another message (which has been totally ignored like most
messages that are about the junk filter and rules features), I first tried
the low setting, but that was completely useless. I then went for the high
setting, but was still getting bad results. I therefore went for the safe
lists only setting, which obviously is the safest. Yet, it's not ideal, as I
can obviously get genuine e-mail from people who are not in my safe lists.

Basically, I wish M$ had had a better look at what's being done around in
the world of junk filtering. They would then have realised that a technology
that works very well (for me who gets more than 200 junk e-mails per day) is
a filter that implements a Baysian algorithm (like POPFile, for instance).
Surely, OL2k3 doesn't have such a thing.
How did you construct your rules and do you use the "stop processing more
rules" option?
Click to expand...

I really don't see why this would matter. I mean that as far as I understand
it, OL2k3 first determines whether a message is junk or not. Once it's done,
it then checks one's rules. By doing the latter, it takes into account ALL
e-mails, whether they have been classified as junk or not.

Anyway, just in case... My rules that don't work are of the type:

-------------------
Apply this rule after the message arrives
through the <AccountName> account
move to the <FolderName> folder
and stop processing more rules
-------------------

With this type of rule, I end up with some messages being moved into a
folder, after having been classified as junk (and moved to the Junk E-mail
folder) by OL2k3.

Please prove me wrong. I am really more than willing to admit that I have
been doing something wrong. All that matters to me is to get my rules to
work again. Actually, I would also like the junk filter to work better, but
I have the feeling I am asking too much here...

Alan.
 
Almost never means about 1 or 2 pieces of mail per week, and I normally
receive a few hundred mails each week.

As for how the rules are constructed, I NEVER use "through the specified
account" since spam can come in "through the specified account."

I use domain filtering (words in the senders address field), common words in
the subject, etc. I also liberally used the "Add to Junk Senders List"
option early in the beta and it seems to have stuck.


--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. Due to the
Swen virus, all e-mails sent to my actual account will be deleted w/out
reading.

After searching google.groups.com and finding no answer
Alan Garny <[email protected]> asked:

| || One man's meat, another's crap.
|
| Well, it surely is crap for me. No doubt about it!
|
|| I find the Junk Mail rules work perfectly on my machine - I use the
|| High setting. It almost never catches legitimate mail and keeps the
|| junk mail in its junk mail folder. All other rules work as well.
|
| Almost never? What does it mean in terms of percentage? Before
| installing OL2k3, I used to have POPFile, which would correctly
| detect 99% of my junk mail. Considering that I nowadays get more than
| 200 mails that is junk (based on the last couple of days).
|
| As I have said in another message (which has been totally ignored
| like most messages that are about the junk filter and rules
| features), I first tried the low setting, but that was completely
| useless. I then went for the high setting, but was still getting bad
| results. I therefore went for the safe lists only setting, which
| obviously is the safest. Yet, it's not ideal, as I can obviously get
| genuine e-mail from people who are not in my safe lists.
|
| Basically, I wish M$ had had a better look at what's being done
| around in the world of junk filtering. They would then have realised
| that a technology that works very well (for me who gets more than 200
| junk e-mails per day) is a filter that implements a Baysian algorithm
| (like POPFile, for instance). Surely, OL2k3 doesn't have such a thing.
|
|| How did you construct your rules and do you use the "stop processing
|| more rules" option?
|
| I really don't see why this would matter. I mean that as far as I
| understand it, OL2k3 first determines whether a message is junk or
| not. Once it's done, it then checks one's rules. By doing the latter,
| it takes into account ALL e-mails, whether they have been classified
| as junk or not.
|
| Anyway, just in case... My rules that don't work are of the type:
|
| -------------------
| Apply this rule after the message arrives
| through the <AccountName> account
| move to the <FolderName> folder
| and stop processing more rules
| -------------------
|
| With this type of rule, I end up with some messages being moved into a
| folder, after having been classified as junk (and moved to the Junk
| E-mail folder) by OL2k3.
|
| Please prove me wrong. I am really more than willing to admit that I
| have been doing something wrong. All that matters to me is to get my
| rules to work again. Actually, I would also like the junk filter to
| work better, but I have the feeling I am asking too much here...
|
| Alan.
 
Milly Staples said:
As for how the rules are constructed, I NEVER use "through the specified
account" since spam can come in "through the specified account."

I use domain filtering (words in the senders address field), common words in
the subject, etc. I also liberally used the "Add to Junk Senders List"
option early in the beta and it seems to have stuck.
Click to expand...

I don't see a big difference between using domain filtering and address
filtering. In fact, you make yourself more prone to receiving junk, since I
would think that addresses you know will be part of a domain.

Anyway, this doesn't matter at all. M$ allows rules. They allow to specify
rules for messages that come "through [a] specified account", therefore it
should work.

Incidently, have you honestly never received any mail that was first
categorised as junk and then treated by one of your rules? From what you
said above, I would be very surprised if it had never happened to you. It's
not something that has just happened to me, but to lots of people already
(see some messages on this newsgroup).

Alan.
 
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