Your e-mail client downloads all of your e-mail from the mail server and then it filters certain messages into certain folders. You may have a junk mail filter that does this already.

This works great most of the time, but there are some situations where this might not work for you. If you have a PDA that picks up your mail, it can be frustrating to wait for all of the junk to download and then wait even longer for the PDA to delete the messages. Or you might subscribe to some high traffic mailing lists and would like these messages to go directly to folders that you have setup.

The solution is to filter these messages on the mail server itself. When mail comes in, the server decides what folder the messages should go in. If it's junk, it goes directly to your junk mail folder.

We use a program called Sieve to filter mail on the server and we provide a web page where you can setup rules for Sieve. These steps will walk you through setting up a junk mail filter.

Creating a Filter Rule for Spam

The Smart Sieve website is at...

When you visit this page, you'll be prompted for your username and password. Generally, your username is the same as your e-mail address. Type in your username and password and press the "Log In" button to log into Smart Sieve.

Click on the "New Filter Rule" link at the top of the web page. This will bring up the new filter form.

All of the e-mail that comes in to your account is run through a program called Spam Assassin. This program performs a variety of tests and heuristics to try and figure out if the incoming message is actually spam. If the message is spam, it adds a special header to the e-mail message. We'll use this header to figure out what is spam and what is not.

Under the "Conditions" section, type

in the "If mail header:" field. In the "Contains" field to the right of that, type in

Under the "Actions" section, click the "File Into:" radio button and select the folder you want your junk mail stored in from the pull-down menu.

Click the "Save Changes" link in the bottom-left to save the new filtering rule.

That's it, the new rule has been created. Any message that comes in with an "X-Spam-Flag" header that has a "YES" value in it will be filed into your spam folder. You can click on the "View All Rules" link at the top of your page to see all of your active rules.

You can setup more rules to filter other types of messages like those from a mailing list. You can also setup your account to send a "I'm on vacation" message when you'll be away for more than a day or two.