Greetings, Fellow Email Users.
The Spam Problem is getting larger and messier, and we're all looking for ways to ease the strain on swollen InBoxes everywhere.
My own favorite solution, CloudMark, still requires that my computers download ALL of my Email, and then do filtering locally.
The nice folks at Google have provided another method, and I have tested it on a couple clients so far (including a Dial-Up Client!!), and it seems to be helping a great deal.
With 300-400 Spam arriving in my mailboxes DAILY, I am going to start "filtering" my Email through Gmail, as well.
Gmail's Spam filtering seems excellent, with very few "false positives", and they also offer FREE access via POP Email Client programs.
Requirements: that your current Email Address is capable of being Forwarded to another address.
So, here is what we're going to do:
1. Create a free Gmail account.
2. Enable POP Access on that account, and set it to Delete all Email Messages after they have been downloaded by Outlook (or whatever).
3. Forward our Email Address to the Gmail address.
4. Configure Microsoft Outlook 2003 (as an example) to retrieve our Email from Gmail, rather than from our normal provider, directly.
OK, here
we go... |
Let's get a Gmail account:
At www.Gmail.com, click on Sign Up for Gmail:
You will then find yourself at the Gmail InBox screen:
Step 2: configure the Gmail account, so that our POP Email Client program can access our Email:
Click on Settings, then choose "Forwarding and POP".
Click the radio-button next to "Enable POP only for mail that arrives from now on".
Next, under "When messages are accessed with POP", choose "delete Gmail's copy", so Gmail doesn't archive all the Spam that's been through your account.
Right-click the link to "Configuration instructions" so that you get another browser window (or another Tab Window in Firefox or IE 7) with the Email Client Configuration page in it.
OK, finishing up on the Settings page:
Be SURE to click the Save Changes button. It's easy to forget this, as you go off to Configure your email client.
Step 3: Forward your Email address to the Gmail account.
This step may not be possible for everybody. I've got several different "forwarding" addresses, through POBox.com, for example, and I have my own domain names at Thomassen.org and NoveltyHill.net, so I can control how the Email is handled from these, and just forward as many addresses as I wish, to the new Gmail address.
In fact, I've been meaning to do a diagram of how my various Email Addresses route my messages to me, so it's a good time for me to check that, and see how and where I should change my forwarding paths.
Step 4. Follow the directions on Gmail's Email Client Configuration page, for Outlook, or whatever POP client you are using.
There are directions for BlackBerry Email devices, too (I didn't scroll down far enough, before I captured the screen above, for you to see it.)
Send yourself a test message, at your "normal" Email address, and see how it works.
Just for a confidence-booster, I would suggest that you sign-onto the Gmail site directly, from time to time, to see if it has flagged any legitimate Email messages.
And, as always, I really and truly ENJOY helping people get more pleasure, satisfaction and utility from their computers.
Please feel free to Email me questions, ideas, concerns, or problems, any time, and I will answer you as quickly as possible.
Of course, by doing it in writing, as much as possible, you'll have a copy of what I sent you, and I'll have a copy, too, so I can remember what I sent, and I can use your question, and what answer we came up with, to help other folks.
If you have trouble with this technique, or anything else in Windows, by all means, please let me know, and I'll attempt to explain it better.
Enjoy.
Bill Thomassen
bill@noveltyhill.net