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Updated: 11/13/04

Use Mail Rules in Microsoft Entourage to decrease Spam

Using the mail rules tool in Microsoft Entourage (and other email applications) you can eliminate some of the more frequent spam that you receive.

Get Started : To get started, open Microsoft Entourage (the steps below are for Entourage but may work for other Email applications). Next, click on the Tools menu and then click on Rules (image 1 below).

Next, click the New Button (image 2 below). This will bring up the Edit Rule Dialog Box (image 3 below). This is where you will determine the criteria that Entourage will use to filter your email.

2 - Click on the new button to create a new Rule.

3 - Edit Rule Dialog Box

Edit Rule Dialog Box : When using the editing a rule, there are two steps that you have to take. First, set the Criteria. This is the IF section (3). In the IF section, you tell Entourage what to look for. Most likely you will be looking for messages From certain email addresses, or messages with certain words in the Subject Line. Second, add an action. This is found in the THEN section (4). If any (or all) criteria are met, then this section will determine what Entourage will do with the email message. Options include changing the status, setting the category, moving the message to a particular folder, deleting the message, etc.

Sample Rule :In my sample rule below, you can see that my IF section (5) is looking for messages with Get Rich in the subject. You can see in the THEN section (6) that if any messages are found with that subject then they are given a status of Junk Mail and then deleted.

Sample Rule

Final Tip : When setting up my rules, I used a list of the most frequently used subjects as my criterion. They included sex, money, get rich, free, xxx, diploma, degree, mortgage, etc. To make your junk mail rules more reliable, I would suggest looking at some of the spam that you receive most often and then tailoring your filter around it.

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Related Items

Five Ways to Reduce Spam
Using Rules in Outlook Express (Windows)




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