"How to" Guideline series is coordinated by Helen Mongan-Rallis of the Education Department at the University of Minnesota Duluth. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions to improve these guidelines please e-mail hrallis@d.umn.edu.

How to Reduce Spam (Junk E-mail) from UMD email

by Helen Mongan-Rallis. April 2003

I know that we have all been getting more and more spam (junk) email in our email boxes -- and we get enough email as it is (much of it from me!!) without adding outside spam. UMD ITSS provides help with reducing this. To do this:

1. Go to http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/email/tools.html
2. Once there, scroll down the page to where is says, "Set up Spam Assassin."
3. Click on the link to "email features menu" next to "Set up Spam Assassin."
4. You will be asked to login (using UMD email login and password) in a pop-up box (asking you to "connect to UMD as... ")
5. Once you have logged in, you are taken to the Enhanced Email Features page (the same one you go to when you set up auto-reply if you are away and want a message telling people this when they send you an email).
6. Click on the button for Spam Assassin. This takes you to the Configure SpamAssassin page. You can make different choices here:
   • a. Delete without reading or storing: this will delete any Spam so you never even see it. The drawback with this is it MAY delete legitimate email (Frank Simmons said once in every 45 emails) as Spam, so you may miss important emails this way.
   • b. Mark as spam (Adds phrase *****SPAM***** to subject and leaves in inbox): The email still comes to your email box, but you can then sort your email by thread (so all Spam is grouped together, scan the list easily, and delete most of them without even having to open them (you can usually tell they are Spam by the subject line).
   • c. Store in mailfolder: this way all the Spam goes to a separate folder. You can then check this periodically to see if there are any legitimate emails in there, and delete the rest (similar to choice (b), but at least the Spam messages don't clog your regular email box then).
7. Click on the submit button and you are all set.

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