Creating a Spam Filter Rule in Microsoft Outlook 2003

ITS has implemented a new way of marking spam messages. Potential spam or junk mail messages are flagged in the subject line of each message as POTENTIAL SPAM. This allows CU-Boulder e-mail users to filter spam and junk mail messages away from their inbox. For more information about ITS's effort against spam go to www.colorado.edu/its/email/spam.html

Enabling the Outlook Built-In Spam Filter

1. Open Outlook, and select the Mail Navigation Pane from the bottom left corner.

2. Click on the Tools drop-down menu, and select Options.

3. In the Options dialogue box, in the E-mail section, select Junk E-Mail, as shown below:

4. In the window that opens, choose the level of junk e-mail message protection you want and click OK.

Customizing Junk E-mail Handling

You can customize the junk e-mail filtering of Outlook 2003 in the following categories:

Safe Senders List
If an e-mail message is mistakenly marked as a junk e-mail message by the filter, you can easily add the sender of that message to your Safe Senders List. E-mail addresses and domain names on the Safe Senders List are never treated as junk e-mail messages, regardless of the content of the message. Contacts are trusted by default and messages from them will never be treated as junk e-mail messages. You can configure Outlook 2003 to accept only messages from the Safe Senders List, giving you total control over which messages you receive.

Safe Recipients Lists
An e-mailing list or group that you are a member of can be added to your Safe Recipients Lists. Any messages sent to the e-mail addresses or domain names on this list will not be treated as junk e-mail messages, regardless of the sender or content of the message.

To add a sender to your Safe Senders List or Safe Recipients Lists:

1. Right-click on a message from the sender.

2. Select Junk E-mail, and click either Add Sender to Safe Senders List or Add Recipient to Safe Recipients Lists.

Customizing a Message Filter

If you need to handle a specific type of e-mail message in a special way, you may want to customize some message filters on Outlook. The instructions below describe how to use this feature in conjunction with the University of Colorado at Boulder spam-tagging service. This will ensure that messages tagged as "POTENTIAL SPAM" by the CU-Boulder spam-tagging service will be placed in your junk mail folder.

1. Open Outlook and select the Mail Navigation Pane from the bottom left corner.

2. Click on the Tools drop down menu and select Rules and Alerts . . .

3. In the window that opens, click on the New Rule... button.

4. In the Rules Wizard dialogue box, select Start from a blank rule and click Next, as shown below:

5. Under Step 1: Select condition(s), select with specific words in the subject, as shown below:

6. Under Step 2, click on the blue, underlined phrase, specific words, as shown below:

7. In the window that opens, type the words Potential Spam in the text box at the top, and then click Add, then OK, then Next, as shown below:

8. Under Step 1: Select action(s), select move it to the specified folder, as shown below:

9. Under Step 2, click the blue, underlined word, specified, as shown below:

10. Select Junk E-mail and click OK, as shown below:

11. Click Finish, as shown below:

12. Click Run Rules Now... to move any existing mail in your inbox already tagged as "POTENTIAL SPAM" to your junk mail folder, as shown below:

13. Click OK to enable this rule for all future mail handling, as shown below:

14. Future mail that is tagged as "POTENTIAL SPAM" will be moved to your junk mail folder. Check your junk mail folder periodically to ensure that no legitimate messages were accidentally marked as junk mail.

For more information about spam go to www.colorado.edu/its/email/spam.html