Configuring Your Mail Filters

In order to configure your email filters, follow these instructions. Even if you do not use the webmail interface to read your mail, it is the only mechanism that can be used to configure the mail filters. Note that these filters will be active regardless whether you use the webmail interface or a standalone email client.

1. If you have not already done so, log into the Webmail interface.
2. On the left of the page you will see an Mail menu item. Click on the plus icon to expand it if necessary.
3. Click on the Filters item under Mail
4. The default rules consist of the following:
   1. Whitelist Mail from addresses on this list will always be delivered to your mailbox.
   2. Vacation This rule is disabled by default. If enabled, people who send you email will get an automatic answer. Traditionally this was used to send back a message to the effect of "I'm away from my email for a while, I'll respond to your message when I return". Before you enable this, consider whether or not you really want people to know that your residence is vacant for an extended period. Ensure that you do not send replies to mailing lists or you can cause a mail loop resulting in your mailing list subscription to be cancelled and/or your email account to be disabled. Ensuring that the Do not send responses to bulk or list messages remains checked will handle most mailing lists.
   3. Blacklist Mail from addresses on this list will be always be handled as specified. The default action is to delete the message, but the action can be changed by editing the blacklist rule.
   4. Forward This rule is used to forward all remaining email to another address. Please do not enable the Keep a copy of messages in this account unless you ensure that you are periodically deleting mail from this server; I do not want mail usage to balloon out of control.
5. Recommended anti-spam rules. Although they do not appear in the default configuration, it is recommended that you do the following:
   1. Move the Vacation rule to after the Blacklist rule by using the down arrow at the right end of the Vacation rule.
   2. Add in a Probably Spam Rule
      1. Click on the New Rule button.
      2. In the Rule Name field enter "Probably Spam"
      3. In the Select a field drop-down list, select Self-Defined Header
      4. In the empty field under the Self-Defined Header box, enter "X-GNO-MailScanner-SpamScore" (without the quotes)
      5. The drop-down box to the right of the Self-Defined Header box should remain as Contains.
      6. In the empty field to the right of the Contains box, enter seven s characters: "sssssss" (without the quotes):
         • If you want to automatically delete more spam at the risk of also deleting non-spam messages, then reduce the number of s characters.
         • If you want to be more cautious about not deleting non-spam message, increase the number of s characters in the rule. The downside is that you will have to manually delete more spam this way.
         • The number of s characters should remain more than in the Maybe Spam rule described below.
      7. You may ignore the additional Select a field drop-down box; it is used to create more complex filter rules.
      8. In the Do this drop-down box select Delete message completely.
      9. Click on the Save button.
      10. Move this rule to the number 3 position after the Blacklist by entering "3" in the To box at the right end of the rule and pressing your enter/return key (or use the up arrows).
   3. Add in a Maybe Spam Rule
      1. On the Probably Spam rule, click on the Copy Probably Spam icon near the left end of the rule.
      2. Click on the Copy of Probably Spam rule to edit it.
      3. Change the Rule Name field to "Maybe Spam"
      4. Reduce the number of s characters in the field to the right of the Contains field. Five s characters is probably a good start.
      5. Change the Do this field to Deliver to folder. The form will change to also have a Select target folder drop-down box. Select the Spam mailbox, or another more to your liking.
      6. Click on the Save button.
      7. Verify that the Maybe Spam rule now immediately follows the Probably Spam rule.
      8. Remember to periodically check the Spam (or otherwise selected) mailbox for mis-tagged non-spam email, and to delete the rest of the (spam) messages.
6. Other Filtering Rules You may use this filtering interface not only to control spam, but also to pre-sort your inbound mail according to various criteria. One common kind of rule is to sort mailing lists into their own mailboxes. You need to first create the destination mailbox under your main mailbox. In order to facilitate sorting, most reputable lists will have either a Sender or List-Id header that is suitable for the purpose. For mailing lists, filtering based on the Subject does not always work, and filtering based on the From field rarely works.