Mail Filtering

If you had filters that were setup on the old system (before March 5, 2010), please notify our technicians before adding or changing your filters.

Network Solutions is proud to provide powerful mail filtering abilities to our users. This document will help you use these features. Mail filtering is the ability to process email based on a number of criteria. You can automatically delete the email, send email to separate folders for review, or automatically forward a received email. Because these features are very flexible, this document is fairly lengthy, but is divided into sections for easy reference.

Accessing Mail Filtering

The mail filtering features are optional and to use them you must create filters for your Email account. Go to http://mail.internetpro.net and enter your email address and password in the blanks provided and hit the Login button. Once in your E-Mail account there is a list of links across the top of the screen. Click on the link for "Options". On the Options page you will see several different options that can be used including "Mail Filters" in the right column toward the bottom. Clicking on the Mail Filters link will take you to a screen where you can create your new filters.

Setting up a Typical SPAM Filter

The most typical rule is going to be to delete or move spam. Here is an example of how to setup a rule to automatically delete spam: There are multiple options to change on this page and each must be set correctly if your filter is to be effective. In the first drop down you have to ensure it is set to "Subject". To change this setting you click on the arrow pointing down and a list of options will drop down, click on "Subject". In the second drop down you again click on the down arrow and select "Begins with". The filter needs a condition to match to and our email system puts *****SPAM***** on the subject line of messages that it thinks are spam for use with filters. To automatically delete those messages, type *****SPAM***** in the blank text box provided. That is five *'s (the * is on the 8 key, so hold down Shift and hit the 8 key 5 times) then SPAM (all caps) and five more *'s. This tells the system that we want to work with messages that have *****SPAM***** on the subject line. In the next section, click on the arrow pointing down and select move. Put a check mark next to Folder and in the drop down box on the other side of the word Folder, choose INBOX.Trash. The next icon on the line is a square icon with a pencil. Click on this icon to save the filter. The newly created filter will them move down to the bottom of the screen showing that it is an active filter. Now, any email that comes in with *****SPAM***** will automatically be moved to the Trash folder where it will stay for 7 days. If you have a message accidentally get tagged, you have 7 days to retrieve it from the Trash folder before it is deleted completely.

Dealing with False Positives

No system is perfect for detecting spam, and ours is no different. Occasionally, we have what is called a “false positive”. A false positive happens when the system thinks an email is spam and marks it as such, but it is actually NOT spam. Because our system is so aggressive at trying to catch all spam, this is not unusual. It usually happens if the sender is using an ISP that condones spam or if they use fancy backgrounds or graphics in their emails. If you have a person that sends to you regularly and it is getting tagged as spam, you can put in a new rule that will cause the system to NOT delete that user’s email. First, go to the mail filtering section of the webmail as above. In the first drop down box press the down arrow and select "From". In the second drop down box press the down arrow and select "Contains". In the text box type in the email address of the person that is getting tagged incorrectly. In the next drop down press the down arrow and select move. Put a check box in the box beside "Folder" and make sure the chosen folder is INBOX. There will be other folders in the drop down box that begin with INBOX such as INBOX.Drafts, but you want the one that just says "INBOX". Hit the Save icon (floppy disk with the pencil) and the new rule will go to the bottom of the screen. Our rules are evaluated in order from top to bottom, so you want to move this new rule to make sure it is ABOVE the SPAM rule that deletes the email. To the right of the new rule, there will be a little up arrow. Hit that until your new rule is above the SPAM rule. It doesn't have to be all the way at the top - just make sure it is above the rule which is deleting the messages.

That's it! Now you have filters which will keep your SPAM from getting to your email program or staying in you webmail. If you have any questions or would like one of our technicians to assist you with this, don't hesitate to call us at 877-886-6868 or 256-547-6817.