From The Old To The New. With the old antispam software, you configured your whitelists and blacklist on the PMBx web site. I configured the software rules to try and meet the changing spammer landscape.
With the new antispam software, you use the Drop/Good and Drop/Spam folders to both add senders to your whitelist and blacklist. Additionally, by doing that, you are automatically retraining the software. If you get a legitimate piece of email that ends up in your Junk Mail folder, you need only COPY it (do not drag and drop!) to the Drop/Good folder. The antispam software retrains and whitelists that software and then DELETES it from that folder. (That’s why you COPY it and do not MOVE or DRAG it onto the folder.)
Similarly, spam that ends up in your email box can be copied, moved, or dragged onto the Good/Spam folder. Remember, that after the email is put into that folder it will be deleted. You probably don’t care though if it is deleted since you think this is spam. Below are some screen clips that will help you see how the Junk Mail and the Drop/Good and the Drop/Spam folders look in both the webmail interface on https://www.pmbx.net and on my Macintosh Mail program
Webmail.
Macintosh Mail application showing a similar appearance. (We’ll talk about this in another part.)
Brief Summary About the Junk Mail, Drop/Good, and Drop/Spam Folders. All email is delivered always to your email box. Any email that the antispam software scores as spam will be deposited not in your Inbox, but in the special Junk Mail folder. Your email in your Junk Mail folder will not be deleted unless you do so manually. The Junk Mail folder is YOUR folder and the mail it it is yours.
The Drop/Good and Drop/Spam folders are strictly ‘owned’ by the antispam software. ANYTHING you put in there WILL BE DELETED after the software whitelists or blacklists the send and retrains the software. You or I will NOT be able to retrieve ANY email that is placed in these folders.
How To Deal With Legitimate Email And Spam In The Webmail Interface. First you login to your email account using one of the following:
If you have been having trouble accessing https://www.pmbx.net, I think you should have success with one of the others. Squirrelmail is only available on the first one, but the others have SPID and PRONTO. SPID is very lightweight and the faster of the three. Don’t worry if the login looks a little different than the PMBx web site, and IF you get a certificate notice, it is OK to go ahead and use the web sites. They will be secure. I’m showing the SPID webmail interface here in the following example.
The Junk Mail, Drop/Good, and Drop/Spam folders can be seen if you click All Folders as shown in the top clip above.
Click on the Junk Mail folder as shown in the top clip. Here’s what my Junk Mail folder looks like. Notice I’ve got a legitimate email checked (you can check multiple emails) for PayPal. I’m selecting the Drop/Good folder in the drop down selector. Next I click on the ‘Copy to…’ button (NOT ‘Move to…’).
This COPIES that Paypal email to the Drop/Good folder. That copy in the Drop/Good folder then immediately is processed and DELETED and you can not retrieve it from that folder. Next you can select your Inbox instead of the Drop/Good folder. This time click on the ‘Move to…’ button and that legitimate email is transferred to your Inbox from the Junk Mail folder.
This will whitelist the sending address on that PayPal email AND the antispam software will use it to retrain itself and improve its scoring.
Now I find that I have a spam email that wasn’t scored as spam and so ended up in my Inbox. I want to blacklist the sending address, retrain the antispam software, and get rid of the spam all in one fell swoop. Look at this screen clip where I’ve clicked on my Inbox, checked the spam mail, and have selected the Drop/Spam folder. This time I will click on the ‘Move to…’ button next to it. The spam email will be moved (not copied) to the Drop/Spam folder. The antispam software blacklists the sender of the spam email, retrains itself, and deletes the email within a second or two.
How To Deal With Legitimate Email And Spam In The Macintosh Mail and Windows Outlook applications. In Both Macintosh and Windows, there are TWO types of email accounts that you can create on your computer. If your present email is an IMAP account, then you will already see the Drop/Good, Drop/Spam, and Junk Mail folders as shown in the 2nd clip above. (If you have your email set up as a POP type then you’ll still use it for creating and sending and organizing your email. You’ll only use the IMAP then to deal with spam.)
If you have a POP account instead for your PMBx email box, then you won’t see these folders. But there is a way that you CAN see these folders from your email client WITHOUT having to use a webmail interface. You need to create a NEW email account, and describe it for example like this: Ron IMAP. That way you’ll know where you are. Create the new email account exactly as you did your POP account for your PMBx mail box, EXCEPT choose IMAP as the type and not POP.
All you have to do is enter everything in the IMAP account exactly as you did in the POP account. Once you have that created and you can see the Drop/Good, Drop/Spam, and Junk Mail folder.
Now I’ll show you how to deal with legitimate email that ends up in the Junk Mail. Let’s look at the example below from my Macintosh Mail application. I’ve selected the Junk Mail folder in the IMAP account, and have selected the same PayPal email that has mistakenly been scored as spam and deposited there by the antispam software.
Now I’m going to COPY this email to the Drop/Good folder. Remember if I drag it or move it to the Drop/Good folder, it will be deleted. I want to keep this PayPal email as it is important. After selecting the PayPal email, then I choose the Message menu item ‘Copy To’ as shown below. I then slide down the submenu and choose ‘Good.’ The message will be copied to the Drop/Good folder, the antispam software then will whitelist it, retrain itself, and delete the email in the Drop/Good folder all within a second or two.
Next simply drag the legitimate email back into your Inbox into which ever account you want to save it in.
Now I’ll show you how to deal with spam that ends up in your Inbox and not in the Junk Mail folder. This is easier actually. If you look below I’ve selected an example email ‘Any Spam Email’ that is in one of my mail boxes.
Now I simply select ‘Move To’ from the Message menu, and then Drop/Spam from the submenu. This moves the message out of that Inbox and then puts it into the Drop/Spam folder. Within a second or two, the antispam software, will blacklist it, retrain itself, and delete that email from the Drop/Spam folder. Remember, that any email dropped onto or copied into either of the Drop folders will be deleted and there is no way to retrieve it.
How To Customize the Pollustop Antispam Software For Each User. The Pollustop Antispam software is very sophisticated and in my testing was very effective at identifying spam and isolating it in the Junk Mail folder. There are some individual settings though that allow you to customize… and even stop… the screening for your individual folder.
A Word of Warning: Now before you reflexly reach to turn off the antispam screening I need to give you a word of caution. For many, many years, I’ve been able to prevent the vilest of emails from reaching you. If you turn off the screening, you should expect the worst. I presented the ‘how to use it’ information first because you need to have been introduced to it. If you do turn off the spam screening you have already in your possession the documents you will need should you then decide to turn it back on. Additionally, because your whitelist automatically grows every time you send email to someone, it only gets better and better each time. (Read on to see how.)
The Pollustop Antispam settings for each user can be accessed here:
It is a secure page, but your browser might balk and say the certificate is not right, but I promise that it is OK. Here is the login screen. Use your same PMBx email address and password to login.
After you login, you will see the following one page screen. I want to go over what each setting is so that you will fully understand what they do. Notice that the very top setting turns the spam filter on and off. Unlike anything I’ve ever been able to offer before now, this software allows you to completely stop the spam filtering for you and you alone.
- Stopping the spam filter for you alone. Change the ‘I want’ to ‘I don’t want’ in the Spam Filter section.
- Automated listing. When your spam filtering is ON, and you send a message to someone, their address is automatically whitelisted. In other words the more you communicate with your friends, family, and colleagues, the bigger you whitelist grows. In other words you don’t have to manually whitelist these people you send mail to. The two other settings control how you want the whitelisting function when you drop or copy or move an email into the Drop/Good or Drop/Spam folder.
- Here are the actual listings, both of blacklistings, and whitelistings for your email address. These can get long, so if you want to filter out the listings, then you can do that. There is also a section for listing other domain names of organizations, and entities. This is where I’m putting the domain names of the airlines… though it is for the entire server. You need not whitelist your airlines. Let me do that so we can get one comprehensive list. Remember DOMAIN Names, not the name of the airlines (i.e. b.e.delta.com and not Delta Airlines). The best thing is to tell me the whole SENDING email address on ticket confirmations.
When you are done, click the Save Settings button and you are done. Changes take immediate effect but there may be email that is screening as you type… it is very fast software.
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