Thunderbird and spam filtering

**Christer** · 24th February 2005

Hello all!

I have used Thunderbird for a few weeks now and have a few questions/thoughts.

When I was using MailWasher (free) and Outlook Express, MW preceeded OE and I could delete spam off the server before downloading into OE. This procedure has reduced the quantity of spam from ~50 a day to ~25 a day and it seemed to be on the decline when I moved to TB.

I have not used MW in combination with TB in order to determine how the spam filter in TB works and it works well. It actually works better than MW since it uses the Address book as reference which reduces the "false positives".

Is there a setting in TB to allow spam to be deleted off the server as opposed to from TB? This morning, I changed the setting from "download all messages automatically" to "download headers only". Will that setting allow me to delete from the spam folder without actually having downloaded the message?

I wouldn't miss using MW in combination with TB if TB does it on its own but if I have to use both, I will.

Thanks for Your time,
Christer

**Christer** · 24th February 2005

Quote:

This morning, I changed the setting from "download all messages automatically" to "download headers only".

That resulted in a sound notifying of a new mail but nothing showed up. I had to re-check the box for "download all messages automatically" and keep the check for "download headers only". Now, only the headers show up and I have to click the few legitimate mails I get to download them. Spam can be deleted by viewing the headers only and as I understand it (?), that corresponds to the MailWasher procedure.

Christer

**Westside** · 24th February 2005

It is possible that what you did accomplishes what you want, although I am not so sure. It definitely would prevent wacky programs like Norton AV from quarantining the entire Inbox, when there is only a single virus. But, and it would be simpler to delete headers than than e-mails which then require dumping to Trash, and compacting. I will give it a shot, although I don't know if this will make the Junk controls redundant. I,still, mark the mail as Junk, if considered to be Junk. The Junk Controls are, presumably learning, but I see little evidence of that. Fortunately, I have Spam Controls from my ISP.

**Christer** · 24th February 2005

In my case, it seems like it sends everything that has no match in my address book to the spam can. The learning curve of the spam filter will start when the first "spam" arrives that really is "friendly" and I will have to mark it as "no spam".

It puts the headers in the correct place, those of spam in the spam can and the others in the inbox.

Only time will tell if the daily quantity of spam will continue to drop by deleting them directly off the server (which is what I believe that I'm doing).

Christer

**Westside** · 24th February 2005

I am going to try what you are. I was doing it all along, but it included the downloading the e-mail. If everything works ok, the headers only is the way to go, but there are certain things which the Junk filter, nor the ISP filter can learn, apparently. That has to do with faked DNS. I am getting those on the regular basis, and the View Source can tell by telling me me that although my DNS was used, it was really another one, and that it was not from from the listed e-mail, but from another one. All these e-mails have no subject nor text. I will have to keep record of this.

**Christer** · 24th February 2005

It's interesting to learn about new things ......

...... and a fresh mind trigger others to think too.

I'm starting to like TB better than OE but have not yet created any rules to direct specific mail to a specific subfolder created by myself in the Inbox.
If I get that to work and the spam filter works as "good" as the MW/OE combination, then I believe that I will consider myself a convert!

I'm not so sure about Firefox (which I am using right now) but that's another topic for another day.

Christer