Filters allow you to define what MailWasher Pro tags as spam, neutral or good email. You can specify certain words or combinations of words that, if they appear in the Subject, Body, From, Too, CC, Received, header, return path, or the entire message, they, will trigger an automatic categorization from MailWasher Pro.

 

Filter options allow you to construct plain text filters, build more complex filters using regular expressions and block emails in certain languages.

 

Actions on filters allow you to set the spam score, choose the filter display color and override fixed settings when a filter is triggered.

 

 

Setting up a filter

Go to Settings>>Spam Tools>>Filters and click the Add Filter button. A dialogue box appears and lets you enter the name and choose the appearance of the filter when it is triggered, such as font and background color.

 

Choose the Filter type, either Spam, Good or Neutral.

 

The next option is an 'AND/OR' operator meaning an email can match any one of the rules (Any = OR) or must match all of the rules (All = AND)

ie. 'Any' means it matches 1st rule OR 2nd rule OR 3rd rule etc

'All' means it matches 1st rule AND 2nd rule AND 3rd rule etc

 

Next, click the Add Rule button or the drop down arrow next to it to select Standard Rule, Language Rule or Spam Tool Rule

 

Choose from the first box which part of the email you want to filter on, such as the Entire Message, or just the Subject Line.

 

Next, select the condition 'Contains, Does not contain, or Is.

 

Next, select what type of filter you want to use, Plain Text or Regular Expression (Reg Ex)

 

 

Plain Text Filers

Plain Text filters are easy to write, but its easy to make mistakes with them. eg. A Plain Text filter to match the word sex would also match sextuplet and sextant, which may be an unintentional match. This is why it is much better to use Regular Expression filters with the pipe | (see below)

 

 

Regular Expression Filters

Regular Expressions filters are difficult to write but offer greater flexibility and accuracy. eg. A filter to test if an email address is valid looks like ^([0-9a-zA-Z]([-.\\w]*[0-9a-zA-Z])*@(([0-9a-zA-Z])+([-\\w]*[0-9a-zA-Z])*\\.)+[a-zA-Z]{2,9})$

MailWasher uses the regular expression engine from http://www.regexlab.com/en/deelx/ if you want to read up on how to create a simple Regular Expression filter.

 

Some simple regular expression filters are illustrated as follows:

 

[Vv]iagra|VIAGRA        would catch upper and lowercase variations on the first letter of the word Viagra, and Viagra all in capitals.

[Rr]eplica.*([Rr]olex|models|bags|watch)        would catch upper and lowercase variations on the first letter of the word Replica and Rolex along with combinations of these with the words models, bags and watch.

 

Using the pipe | to separate words is a much more computationally efficient (and faster!) way to construct filters instead of creating separate rules for each word.

 

 

Language Filters

If a Language filter is chosen, choose from the list of character sets to match.

 

 

Spam Tool Rule

The spam tool rule is used to give you more control over how email addresses on your Friends and Blacklists are used. For example you could create a rule where if the Sender is on my blacklist, then auto-delete this email

 

 

You can combine various rules by again clicking the Add Rule button.

 

 

Actions

You can override the fixed settings and choose a higher or lower spam score for your filter by visiting the Action tab. Other options here include controlling if the email is marked for delete or not, or auto-deleted.

 

You can also hide emails in the email grid if matched by the filter, so these emails are not shown so as to make it easier to read certain aspects of your email.

 

 

How will I know which filter tagged an email?

Click on the spam side bar and select 'Lists', click on the email which has been marked by your filter and the filter used will be highlighted in the filter box.