If you use Outlook or Outlook Express to handle your email, there are ways to block spam, but I haven't seen an article that tackles this in detail, so if you ever wanted to read a definitive article on how to block it, this is the one.

Two ways to do it.

Outlook provides two ways to block spam using MAIL RULES. A mail rule is an instruction to Outlook on what to do with an incoming message.

In the first method, when you receive an email you don't want, you can create a mail rule based on that email, and you will never get it again. This is basically creating a blocking rule "on the fly."

For the second method, you can custom-create mail rules. I use this to cover a specific category of emails, such as porn or weight loss. I'm going to show you how to do both in this tutorial.

Creating a Rule from an Actual Email

NOTE: Most of the graphics in this tutorial (figure 1, figure 2, etc.) are pop-ups; when you see figure 1, for example, click on it for a pop-up picture of what I'm talking about.

In figure 1, I have a snapshot of my Outlook Express Window. Notice the email highlighted that says "work from home." I want to block emails of this type, and I'll show you how to do it effectively.

Figure 3.

Apply this rule after the message arrives
Where the From line contains 'workfromhome@time-2-win.com'

Don't click OK just yet; you need to tell Outlook what to do with messages of this type. In the second box of this window, (2. Select the Actions for your rule:), you should see the action 'Delete it'. Check this box.

If you clicked OK now, you'd have a rule, but a very useless rule. The reason: Spammers can easily change their email addresses, so if you block 'workfromhome@time-2-win.com', you haven't stopped the Spammer from changing their email to 'workfromhome2@time-2-win.com'. What we really want to do in this case is block ALL emails from www.time-2-win.com, because they are a marketing website.

Figure 4.

Click on the link in the third box, and a new window pops up (figure 5). In the first box, type in 'time-2-win.com' and click Add. You have added a new condition, and now ALL emails from time-2-win.com will be blocked--it's easy to change emails, but a lot harder to change domain names, so you've just struck a blow to the Spammer's world.

Now, you can add email addresses AND statements as well, so in figure 6 you can see some of the statements I have added, Work from Home, Work from your Home, Work from your House, etc.. When you're finished, click OK, and then click OK on the New Mail Rules window. You'll get a notice that the rule was sucessfully added.

Now it's time to tell you a few tips that will make your spam-killing more effective:

1. The conditions you set are NOT case-sensitive. The condition, 'Work from Home' will get work from home, WORK FROM HOME, etc..
2. If you use the phrase 'Work from H', it will get both Work from House and Work from Home.
3. If you use the phrase 'Work from your Homes', it will MISS the phrase Work from your Home (since there's no S at the end), so watch how you use plurals and word endings, and use them appropriately.
4. WHATEVER YOU DO, don't use just 'Work' or just 'Home' for a condition! If your spouse emails you and says, "How was work?" or "When are you coming home?", you're going to delete those messages.
5. You can block all emails from time-2-win.com, but if the Spammer uses yahoo, you can't do that unless you want to delete every email from your friends at yahoo, so there are limits.

The second page of this lesson deals with how to create a new mail rule rule from scratch
Go to Page 2