This lesson is about dealing with spam in Outlook.  There are two main ways of doing this. The first is to use SpamBayes and the second is to use the UC Davis campus spam filter.  Both methods will be discussed below and you can use both of them if you wish to. You may want to print out this entire article so you can follow along as you configure your new spam utilities. 

Installing SpamBayes

One of the biggest benefits of using Outlook is the ability to use the SpamBayes plugin.  SpamBayes is a powerful spam filter.  I am one of those lucky people who get lots of spam, and by that I mean up to 100 pieces of spam a day.  With SpamBayes running, only two or three of those end up in my Inbox each day.  SpamBayes learns what your idea of spam is by building rules based on what you call spam and what you call ham ("ham" is good mail).  To prepare for using SpamBayes you might want to save your spam for a few days to jumpstart the training process.

Now, let's go get SpamBayes.  Click on the "download the installation program" link on this page to get the installer:

http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/windows.html

On the download page, click on the file icon for a server in North America to download the file.  Click Run in the Download Complete dialog box or save the file to your desktop.  Double-click on the SpamBayes installer if necessary.  If you get a security warning about the publisher not being verified, go ahead and run it anyway.  Click Next, make certain that the Microsoft Outlook Addin is selected and click Next, click Next, click Next, click Install, lastly click Finish.  The Welcome file is very informative, so you might want to read it, but I have condensed much of that information in the next section.

Training SpamBayes

The first time you open Outlook after installing SpamBayes you will see the SpamBayes Configuration Wizard.  If you took my earlier advice and put a couple of days' worth of spam in your Junk Email folder, you can choose the second option in the list; otherwise, just use the default and click Next.  If you haven't saved any spam in the Junk Email folder, the second screen gives you the option to get out of the Wizard and do that so you can run the wizard later on or just continue without training SpamBayes.  If you did not save any spam ahead of time and you decide to delay the training, you can restart the wizard by clicking on the SpamBayes button in your toolbar, selecting SpamBayes Manager, and then clicking the Configuration Wizard button after you have stored up some spam.  If you did prepare, the second screen lets you pick some folders that have good mail (ham), i.e., your Inbox, and some folders that have bad mail (spam), i.e., your Junk Email folder, to base the training on.  After you choose those folders, SpamBayes trains itself using the folders you have picked.  The next few screens are best left with the default settings, so just keep clicking Next until you see Finish.

SpamBayes Settings

Now that you have SpamBayes installed and it has some initial training, here are some other settings that will help it run smoother. To access these settings, click on SpamBayes in your toolbar and select SpamBayes Manager.  Click the Advanced tab and slide both sliders all the way left so the time on the right says 0.0 seconds.  This will let SpamBayes filter your messages right away rather than waiting for awhile between messages.  Click the Filtering tab and check the Mark Spam as Read option to keep the messages from being tagged as unread in your Junk Email folder.  This keeps Outlook from showing how many messages are in the Junk Email folder in the folder list on the left column -- the blue number in parentheses, i.e., (253).  It also will keep the spam out of your Unread Mail folder.

Look in your Junk Suspects folder frequently.  Move ham to your Inbox either by dragging it or by clicking Recover from Spam in the toolbar.  Move spam to your Junk Email folder by dragging it there or clicking Delete as Spam in the toolbar.  If you do this, SpamBayes will constantly refine its rule set and get better and better at filtering spam out of your Inbox.

UCD Campus Spam Filtering

SpamBayes is a good program and you can use it by itself just fine, but it you want to add another anti-spam tool to your arsenal you might want to activate the UCD campus spam filters as well.

UCD has a program called Spam Assassin that tests all of the email going to ucdavis.edu email addresses to identify and tag suspected spam, but it doesn't do anything with the suspected spam until you tell it what to do. You have three choices: (1) do nothing and you'll just keep getting the spam; (2) have it deleted at the campus mail server and you won't get it at all; or (3) have it stopped at the campus server and stored. In this case you will receive an email once a week that summarizes all of the spam in case there is something legitimate that you want to retrieve. 

You can make your choice by going to:

http://security.ucdavis.edu/spam.cfm

Toward the top of the page in the middle under Campus Spam Filtering, click on "Set up campus spam filtering now."

You'll have to put in your username and password. Scroll down to the bottom of the page that opens up.

The second option is to receive an email once a week summarizing your spam. Then you can glance through the list and retrieve the items that you want. If you choose this second option one thing you have to remember to do is go into Geckomail periodically and delete the messages in the UCD-spam folder. If you don't, your email account will fill up and people won't be able to send you anything anymore.

Even if you activate the campus spam filters, you will still receive some spam -- it won't catch everything. In fact, the campus spam filters are very conservative because they don't want to stop legitimate email. So if you activate the campus spam filters, make sure that you also make use of the spam filters that come with your email program.

To access geckomail go to:

http://geckomail.ucdavis.edu