| What to do |
How to do it |
| 1 |
Determine your preferred minimum spam "score." |
- UCSD's spam filtering system assigns each message a score, representing the probability that the message in question is spam.
- A message is tagged as spam if it receives a score of 5.0 or above, represented in the mail message in the X-Spam-Level header by the number of asterisks (*).
- Choosing a lower value will result in a greater volume of spam in your spam folder, but will also increase the likelihood of a legitimate mail message being sorted as spam.
- To determine the level at which you feel comfortable filtering, examine the assigned score on a variety of messages in your inbox.
- View the mail headers of your e-mail by double-clicking a message.
- Click the View pull-down menu, and select Internet Headers. The spam score usually appears near the bottom.
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| 2 |
Begin creating a new rule.
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- Open Entourage.
- Select Tools, and then click Rules.
- Click on New.

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| 3 |
Specify the header.
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- For Rule name type Spam
- Click the arrows next to All messages, and select Specific Header.
- In the field next to it, type X-Spam-Level. In the text field next to Contains,
type the number of *s you wish to set as your cutoff level (4 or 5 is a good place to start).

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| 4 |
Specify to move messages.
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- Click the down arrow next to Change status, and select Move message.

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| 5 |
Create a folder.
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- Click the arrows next to Inbox, and select Choose folder.
- Click New Folder.

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| 6 |
Name the folder.
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- Type Spam in the Name field.
- Click Create to continue. The new Spam rule will show up in your Rules window. You may now close the window.
- To create an exception for a specific e-mail, continue to Step 7; otherwise, skip to Step 10.
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| 7 |
Create an exception rule.
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- To override the spam filters for a specific e-mail (e.g., your friend, gblufin@hotmail.com, sends e-mail that is constantly filtered into the spam folder) to prevent it from being filtered out, create an exception rule.
- Select Tools, and then click Rules.
- Double-click the check box for Spam.

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| 8 |
Specify the criteria for the exception.
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- Click Add Criterion.
- To create an exception rule using someone's e-mail address, select From.
- Select Does not contain.

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| 9 |
Specify the e-mail address.
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- In the blank field next to it, specify the e-mail address (i.e., gblufin@hotmail.com).
- You can add more exception rules by repeating these steps. Click OK when finished.
- Close the Rules window.

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| 10 |
Pay attention to filtered spam.
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- Incoming e-mail that appears to be spam will automatically be moved to the new folder you created.
- It's possible for legitimate e-mail to be marked as spam. Periodically check the contents of the Spam folder to ensure that this has not occurred before deleting its contents.
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