Howtos

Protecting Againt Junk E-Mail in Mozilla Thunderbird

Posted: June 03, 2009

Mozilla Thunderbird features tools that filter all incoming messages and identify messages that are most likely junk. Users have the option of automatically deleting junk mail or placing the messages in a specific folder.

This valuable tool can be used as an alternative to server side filtering or in addition to server side filtering - often, combining the two tools provides better protection, but as different individuals e-mail usage varies so does each users consideration of what is Spam.

To activate junk mail detection:

  1. In the menu, select Tools > Junk Mail Controls.
  2. Click the "Adaptive Filters" tab.
  3. Select the "Enable adaptive junk mail detection" option.
  • To increase the effectiveness of Thunderbird's integrated junk mail protection, you should mark messages as junk.

To flag or mark a message as junk/read:

  1. In the main window, click on the message you want to mark.
  2. In the menu, select "Message > Mark ..." and select the desired option.

To designate where junk mail messages are automatically sent:

  1. Select the "Move incoming messages determined to be junk to" check box.
  2. If you want to move junk messages to the junk folder of an account, select the option that reads "Junk folder on" and choose the desired folder from the drop down menu.
  3. If you want to move junk messages to another folder, select the option that reads "Other" and choose the desired folder from the drop down menu.

To automatically delete messages located in junk mail folders after a specified amount of time:

  1. Select the "Automatically delete junk messages older than" option and enter the number of days you want to keep your junk messages before automatically deleting them.

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