Outlook should let me use wildcards in junkemail settings.

[Guest]

I would really like to be able to categorize junk email with wildcards.
Where this is really getting to be a pain is the spammers new trick is to use
third level domains so the email will come from (e-mail address removed).
Then when I block that email, I get a piece of spam from
(e-mail address removed) and that one comes into my inbox. Ideally, I
would be able to either block the root domain lotsofjunk.com and anything
that comes from that domain would be blocked. Or I could block all third
level domains with @*.lotsofjunk.com (* being the wildcard).

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

Frankly, it's better to use Outlook 2003's junk mail on the high setting and
only add addresses that are false positives to the safe senders list. Adding
spam addresses to the list is a waste of time and resources because so much
junk mail is sent with fake addresses or single use addresses.

Exchange admins can use wildcards to block spam at the server level.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Coauthor, OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)
Author, Google and Other Search Engines (Visual QuickStart Guide)



Join OneNote Tips mailing list: http://www.onenote-tips.net/

 

[Vanguard]

I would really like to be able to categorize junk email with wildcards.
Where this is really getting to be a pain is the spammers new trick is
to use
third level domains so the email will come from
(e-mail address removed).
Then when I block that email, I get a piece of spam from
(e-mail address removed) and that one comes into my inbox. Ideally,
I
would be able to either block the root domain lotsofjunk.com and
anything
that comes from that domain would be blocked. Or I could block all
third
level domains with @*.lotsofjunk.com (* being the wildcard).

Do you really have to use the "@[hostname.]domain.tld[.cctld]" syntax to
specify a domain to block? Couldn't you just specify "domain.tld"?

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

Yes, you really do need to use the complete syntax to block it - outlook
only recognizes complete domains - for example, blocking Microsoft.com only
blocks mail from (e-mail address removed), not mail sent from
(e-mail address removed).

Exchange's domain filter will accept wildcards (@*casino* will work), but
outlook does not.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Coauthor, OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)
Author, Google and Other Search Engines (Visual QuickStart Guide)



Join OneNote Tips mailing list: http://www.onenote-tips.net/

I would really like to be able to categorize junk email with wildcards.
Where this is really getting to be a pain is the spammers new trick is to
use
third level domains so the email will come from (e-mail address removed).
Then when I block that email, I get a piece of spam from
(e-mail address removed) and that one comes into my inbox. Ideally, I
would be able to either block the root domain lotsofjunk.com and anything
that comes from that domain would be blocked. Or I could block all third
level domains with @*.lotsofjunk.com (* being the wildcard).

Do you really have to use the "@[hostname.]domain.tld[.cctld]" syntax to
specify a domain to block? Couldn't you just specify "domain.tld"?

--
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_________________________________________________________________

 

[Vanguard]

Yes, you really do need to use the complete syntax to block it -
outlook only recognizes complete domains - for example, blocking
Microsoft.com only blocks mail from (e-mail address removed), not mail
sent from (e-mail address removed).

Exchange's domain filter will accept wildcards (@*casino* will work),
but outlook does not.

Do you really have to use the "@[hostname.]domain.tld[.cctld]" syntax
to specify a domain to block? Couldn't you just specify
"domain.tld"?

Uffda. Another reason to add some anti-spam software to your e-mail
setup.

I'd abandon the block sender option and instead define my own blacklist
rule (put at the top of the rules list). Actually I've never used the
Blocked Sender option because I don't like its behavior. My blacklist
rule searches for the *substring* of "domain.tld" in the From header.
Isn't that what the Blocked Sender is checking against, anyway?

 

[Guest]

Diane,

I understand what you are saying, but for my situation that doesn't work.
I get a lot of random business mail from different people whom it's
impossible for me to know their address ahead of time. Because of this it
takes me ALOT of time to sort through what mail is and isn't spam.

Unfortunately, I don't have the fortune of using Outlook with Exchange, so
I'm a bit out of luck there.

I understand there are other anti-spam products, but I haven't found one
that doesn't put several good emails in the junk mail so I end up having to
sort through the junk pile anyway.

I've found the best way to manage my mail is to eliminate everything I know
is Junk and then sort through the rest, but with Outlook's settings I don't
eliminate near as much as I could with wildcards.

Frankly, it's better to use Outlook 2003's junk mail on the high setting and
only add addresses that are false positives to the safe senders list. Adding
spam addresses to the list is a waste of time and resources because so much
junk mail is sent with fake addresses or single use addresses.

Exchange admins can use wildcards to block spam at the server level.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Coauthor, OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)
Author, Google and Other Search Engines (Visual QuickStart Guide)



Join OneNote Tips mailing list: http://www.onenote-tips.net/

I would really like to be able to categorize junk email with wildcards.
Where this is really getting to be a pain is the spammers new trick is to
use
third level domains so the email will come from (e-mail address removed).
Then when I block that email, I get a piece of spam from
(e-mail address removed) and that one comes into my inbox. Ideally, I
would be able to either block the root domain lotsofjunk.com and anything
that comes from that domain would be blocked. Or I could block all third
level domains with @*.lotsofjunk.com (* being the wildcard).

 

[Guest]

Here's another problem I have, Outlook only allows so many rules and I've
already exceeded that limit. I get various reports that I sort into folders
automatically so I don't have to constantly manage my Inbox.

Anyways, maybe I will discard one of my rules, but I think that should be
another improvement to Outlook is allowing you to add rules as you need
instead of limiting you.

Yes, you really do need to use the complete syntax to block it -
outlook only recognizes complete domains - for example, blocking
Microsoft.com only blocks mail from (e-mail address removed), not mail
sent from (e-mail address removed).

Exchange's domain filter will accept wildcards (@*casino* will work),
but outlook does not.

Do you really have to use the "@[hostname.]domain.tld[.cctld]" syntax
to specify a domain to block? Couldn't you just specify
"domain.tld"?

Uffda. Another reason to add some anti-spam software to your e-mail
setup.

I'd abandon the block sender option and instead define my own blacklist
rule (put at the top of the rules list). Actually I've never used the
Blocked Sender option because I don't like its behavior. My blacklist
rule searches for the *substring* of "domain.tld" in the From header.
Isn't that what the Blocked Sender is checking against, anyway?

--
_________________________________________________________________
Post your replies to the newsgroup. Share with others.
E-mail: news.vanguardATgmail.com (append "#NEWS#" to Subject)
_________________________________________________________________

 

[Brian Tillman]

I would really like to be able to categorize junk email with
wildcards.
Where this is really getting to be a pain is the spammers new trick
is to use third level domains so the email will come from
(e-mail address removed). Then when I block that email, I get a piece
of spam from (e-mail address removed) and that one comes into my
inbox. Ideally, I would be able to either block the root domain
lotsofjunk.com and anything that comes from that domain would be
blocked.

Then use a rule that examines the headers for "lotsofjunk".

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

I'd abandon the block sender option and instead define my own blacklist

rule (put at the top of the rules list). Actually I've never used the
Blocked Sender option because I don't like its behavior. My blacklist
rule searches for the *substring* of "domain.tld" in the From header.

That will work, but it's not nearly as automatic as adding it via the junk
mail options.

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

how many rules do you have? If you aren't using an Exchange server, you
should have virtually unlimited rules - I'm sure there is a limit, but I've
not heard from anyone that actually hit it yet. (I gave up after 70 or so
when I tried it.)



--

Here's another problem I have, Outlook only allows so many rules and I've
already exceeded that limit. I get various reports that I sort into
folders
automatically so I don't have to constantly manage my Inbox.

Anyways, maybe I will discard one of my rules, but I think that should be
another improvement to Outlook is allowing you to add rules as you need
instead of limiting you.

Yes, you really do need to use the complete syntax to block it -
outlook only recognizes complete domains - for example, blocking
Microsoft.com only blocks mail from (e-mail address removed), not mail
sent from (e-mail address removed).

Exchange's domain filter will accept wildcards (@*casino* will work),
but outlook does not.

"Vanguard" <see_signature> wrote in message

Do you really have to use the "@[hostname.]domain.tld[.cctld]" syntax
to specify a domain to block? Couldn't you just specify
"domain.tld"?

Uffda. Another reason to add some anti-spam software to your e-mail
setup.

I'd abandon the block sender option and instead define my own blacklist
rule (put at the top of the rules list). Actually I've never used the
Blocked Sender option because I don't like its behavior. My blacklist
rule searches for the *substring* of "domain.tld" in the From header.
Isn't that what the Blocked Sender is checking against, anyway?

--
_________________________________________________________________
Post your replies to the newsgroup. Share with others.
E-mail: news.vanguardATgmail.com (append "#NEWS#" to Subject)
_________________________________________________________________

 

[Vanguard]

Here's another problem I have, Outlook only allows so many rules and
I've
already exceeded that limit. I get various reports that I sort into
folders
automatically so I don't have to constantly manage my Inbox.

Anyways, maybe I will discard one of my rules, but I think that should
be
another improvement to Outlook is allowing you to add rules as you
need
instead of limiting you.

Yes, you really do need to use the complete syntax to block it -
outlook only recognizes complete domains - for example, blocking
Microsoft.com only blocks mail from (e-mail address removed), not mail
sent from (e-mail address removed).

Exchange's domain filter will accept wildcards (@*casino* will
work),
but outlook does not.

"Vanguard" <see_signature> wrote in message

Do you really have to use the "@[hostname.]domain.tld[.cctld]"
syntax
to specify a domain to block? Couldn't you just specify
"domain.tld"?

Uffda. Another reason to add some anti-spam software to your e-mail
setup.

I'd abandon the block sender option and instead define my own
blacklist
rule (put at the top of the rules list). Actually I've never used
the
Blocked Sender option because I don't like its behavior. My
blacklist
rule searches for the *substring* of "domain.tld" in the From header.
Isn't that what the Blocked Sender is checking against, anyway?

Using Exchange? Then the limit is 32KB (that's 32,768 bytes, not 32,768
rules) within which your rules must fit. That is not adjustable (as
I've been told by Exchange admins). Read
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=147298.

Using a PST file for your message store (in which your rules are
stored)? In older versions of Outlook, the max index was 16K. Later
large table support was added and you could have 64K records per object
type. So my guess is that you could have 64K rules defined. There is a
1.87GB limit on the size of the .pst file for Outlook 2002 and earlier.
For Outlook 2003, I don't think there is a limit on the number of rules
or the size of the file (other than what is imposed by the OS). See
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=830336.

If you are hitting a boundary when attempting to create more rules, it's
most likely because you are using Exchange as your mail server. You
really can't manage your e-mails without needing more than 30 to 50
rules?

OT: Using Outlook Express? Since OE's rules are in the registry,
creating more and more rules without regard to logic flow and economy
results in an ever fattening registry. OE's rules are stored under:

HKCU\Identities\{<identity>}\Software\Microsoft\Outlook
Express\5.0\Rules\xxxx

where xxxx is "Mail" or "News". Since the subkey for each rule has a
name of "nnn" where nnn is a hexidecimal value, my guess is that you can
have 4096 (FFF in hex) rules defined for mail and 4096 for news.

 

[Vanguard]

That will work, but it's not nearly as automatic as adding it via the
junk mail options.

Not as automatic? The Junk Sender "option" adds another rule. You
could just disable that rule rather than turn off the option. You don't
get much for configuration of that fixed rule but it sure looks like it
is implemented as a rule.

Enabling the Junk Sender or Adult Content Senders "options" will either
enable the "Exception List" rule if it already exists or create one if
there isn't one. When you disable both these "options", the Exception
List rule remains defined but gets disabled. You can enable or disable
the Exception List rule yourself without going through the Organize
panels to enable the option checkboxes. You can also edit the Exception
List *rule* when you want to edit the list of blocked senders rather
than having to go through the Organize panels to modify its *option* of
who to block.

Even Microsoft used to refer to this fixed condition rule as a rule
(http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=298734). Sure looks like all those
"options" do nothing more than add (if not present), enable, and disable
a built-in rule (where you cannot modify the operators within the
condition but only the operands on which they test). Still looks like a
rule to me.

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

Are you using outlook 2002/earlier or outlook 2003? OL2003 does not have
junk / adult list - you click a toolbar button (or right click menu) and it
goes on the safe or blocked list, not into a rule in rules wizard.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]
Author, Teach Yourself Outlook 2003 in 24 Hours
Coauthor, OneNote 2003 for Windows (Visual QuickStart Guide)
Author, Google and Other Search Engines (Visual QuickStart Guide)



Join OneNote Tips mailing list: http://www.onenote-tips.net/

 

[Vanguard]

Are you using outlook 2002/earlier or outlook 2003? OL2003 does not
have junk / adult list - you click a toolbar button (or right click
menu) and it goes on the safe or blocked list, not into a rule in
rules wizard.

Still using Outlook 2002. No bang for the buck for me to get Outlook
2003 (and everything else in MS Office 2003). I didn't see anything in
the OP's post or replies that would indicate what version he/she was
using.

 

[Guest]

Not directly relevent to junk mail but it would be very useful if there was
some way of printing out a list of rules and / or editing them. I am sure
that many of my rules could be combined together but is just so easy to make
a new rule.