OE Message rules for DELETE

Need help making a mail rule to delete messages with specific words.

It seems that using the Mail Rules in OE Option: "Where the subject line contains:" appends a wildcard to the beginning end of the words that are listed.

For example, I want to automatically delete a spam message that comes in from a msn.com address (I don't want to block the entire domain, nor have to list the 8000 separate addresses that come in here as spam in the block sender's list), that says "You can win today! "

I created a rule to delete based on the word "win," HOWEVER, it also deletes any messages with Windows or Irwin in the subject line..

I wanted to delete based on the word "asset," but it also deleted any mail with the word "basset" in it (I work with abused bassets..).

I tried using a space before and after, tried a CTL-space and a SHIFT-space, but to no avail.

Any ideas on how to make the "contains" list more literal, that is, only act on the specific words without wildcards that are automatically understood?

Thanks for any help!

 

OE deals with rules in the order in which they are listed. So, for example, if you were to have a rule which moved mails containing the word "bassets" to a specific folder followed by a rule which moved mails containing "assets" to the Trash folder, the "bassets" rule would be the first to "bite" and "bassets" mails would be moved to the appropriate folder prior to the "assets" rule kicking-in.

You may, however, find that it is quite tricky to structure your rules in such a way that you do not end up trashing quite a view legitimate mails.

To my mind, both The Bat! and Eudora posses filtering capabilities to those which are found in OE.

You may also wish to have a look at this post about possible ways to eliminate spam.

 

I DO have the rule now, but there is no MS documentation that the rule was a macro vs. micro rule, and no option to pick that functionality. What a bummer.

 

Macro rule = I tell it to block the word "win," it blocks the word "win." It does NOT block "wins," "twins," "winner," "swine." It is listed as a WORD blocker.. and that was what I had expected.

Micro rule = I tell it to block "win," and it assumes any word that has the letters w-i-n in it.

In essense, it is NOT working as a "word" blocker, but as a "wildcard" blocker, a "feature" that is not documented, and unfortunately, one that isn't allowed to be changed in the advanced options. Drat the luck.. There are pros and cons to either method, I just would have preferred the literal version.

It was a "feature" that took me by surprise, and I was hoping someone here might have a workaround, but it seems the only workaround is "deal with it." I'll adjust.. I'll still gripe about it (grin), but I'll adjust.

I was attempting to whittle down rules to a minute few..

Oh, and an FYI for those using both mail rules AND blocked senders list, the blocked sender's list takes priority over the rules, ie: the BS list is processed first, THEN the rules.

This was (in my case) important because I get a lot of virus laden mail from a local university, so in the blocked senders list I had:

viralu.edu

and in my rules, the one guy I correspond with (john@viralu.edu), had a "move to folder" rule for his specific address. Once again, now that I know the priority the program uses, I now create two rules..

To some of you gurus, that might seem like common sense, but it caught me offguard. The UNIX firewalls that I'm used to admin'ing are set up to work the other way, so targeted msgs only have to be processed once.. Either way is valid, I just wasn't aware of the "lay of the land. "

I appreciate the note, though, thanks!