The best way to report an email as spam is to sign into webmail and click on the Spam button. The end user can also report missed spam by moving the spam into the spam folder via an email client. Moving emails into this folder will automatically tell our system to re-evaluate the spam rules. Conversely, moving a legit email from the spam folder to the inbox will tell our system that the email shouldn’t have been classified as spam.
Depending on your administrator level, you can configure settings for the handling of spam at the user, domain, and company levels. You can also choose the aggressiveness level for the spam filtering. Choosing a level other than the default causes the filtering engine to be more aggressive in labeling mail as spam; however, it may also result in more false positives. In addition, the branding tool allows you to choose whether to allow end users to change the spam aggressiveness level.
- Webmail spam settings
- Spam header, spam folder, and spam tag
- Default settings
- Setting mailbox-level spam handling
- Setting domain-level spam handling
- Setting spam delivery options for Filter accounts
- Setting company-level spam handling
Webmail spam settings
Webmail recognizes the spam settings according to the level at which they are set. The settings are used in the following order:
- Company settings are applied to all users of all domains.
- Domain settings are applied to all users of the domain and take precedence over company settings.
- User settings are applied to the user and take precedence over domain or company settings.
Manually marking an email as spam
Marking an email as spam reports various elements of the email like the sender, email headers, email contents, etc. to the email server. The spam filter will incorporate these elements and filter out future emails that are similar.
Reporting legitimate marketing emails as spam will be ineffective since they are considered a trusted sender. Unsubscribing from their mailing list will prevent future marketing emails.
Note: Marking an email as not spam will teach the spam filter which kinds of emails are considered safe.
- Mark the email as Spam.
- Press Accept to confirm the selected email as spam.
Important: If you confirm to share your data with our Spam partner, the pop-up will go away and you will not be prompted to make a selection going forward. Should you choose to decline, when you mark an email as Spam, the pop-up will appear each time.
Spam header, spam folder, and spam tag
Webmail allows you to control how spam flows to your users by using spam headers, s and .
- Spam Header—Adds the specified text to the header of spam email.
- Spam Tag—Appends a tag to the subject of each email identified as spam.
- Spam Folder—Selects the folder to which spam will be delivered.
These features can be used to deliver spam to a Spam folder.
Considerations
Quotas—Items in the Spam folder do not count against a mailbox’s quota; however, spam that is delivered to the Inbox, or any folder other than the system Spam folder, does count against quota.
Sending Spam Tagged Messages—The tag is not automatically removed when a message is marked as . Users may inadvertently reply or forward spam tagged messages.
Filter Improvement—Messages that are marked as or are used by the server to improve the spam detection filters. Downloading spam to a client bypasses this.
Spam Folder System Cleanup—Messages in the Spam folder that are older than thirty days are automatically deleted.
Default settings
When you create new mailbox users, the initial settings are taken from the default values that are specified at the domain level; these settings can be changed for specific mailboxes.
Likewise, new domains are initially created using the defaults that are set at the company level, but you can override these settings for a specific domain.
The way that settings are applied to new users depends on whether they are default settings or inherited settings.
Setting mailbox-level spam handling
You can configure the way in which a user account handles spam, including rejecting all email marked as spam. Any user-level settings take precedence over domain and company-level settings.
In the Control Panel
To set spam handling for a mailbox user
1. In the Email section of the Control Panel, navigate to the user you want to modify.
For more information, see "Viewing Email user accounts"
2. Click the user name.
The User page opens, displaying the User Settings tab.
3. In the Spam Filtering section, click Edit.
4. In the Safe Senders area, click the plus sign (+) to display a text field.
5. Enter the sender addresses whose email will always be accepted and delivered without filtering.
To add additional addresses, click the plus sign again. You can enter only one address in each text field.
6. In the Block Senders area, click the plus sign (+) to display a text field.
7. Enter the sender addresses whose email hould never be accepted for delivery.
To add additional addresses, click the plus sign again. You can enter only one address in each text field.
8. Optionally, click to put a checkmark next to Reject Spam to prevent spam messages from being delivered at all.
9. For Filter accounts only, click to put a check in the Override inherited value box, and then from the Filter Delivery drop-down list, choose the way in which you want to handle spam messages.
- Quarantine—Do not deliver spam messages to the Reseller’s server.
- Passthrough—Allow spam messages to be delivered to the Reseller’s designated mail server.
10. In the Spam Detection Level area, click to put a check in the Override inherited value box, and then from the drop-down list, choose the level of aggressiveness for spam filtering. Choosing a level other than Normal causes the filtering engine to be more aggressive in labeling mail as spam. If you don't choose a blocking level, the user account uses the domain, company, or global default.
11. In the Spam Header area, click to put a check in the Override inherited value box, and then enter the text that you want to be added to the header of spam messages. The format must begin with a capital letter but can be followed by anything, for example, X-Spam: Spam detected.
12. In the Spam Tag area, click to put a check in the Override inherited value box, and then type the tag you want appended to the Subject line of all spam messages.
13. Click Save.
In the MAC
To set spam handling for a mailbox user
1. Log in to the Mail Administration Console (MAC).
For more information, see "What is the MAC?"
2. Locate the user that you want to edit.
For more information, see “Searching in the Mail Administration Console (MAC)”.
3. Click the user name.
4. In the Spam Settings section, in the Allow text box, enter the sender addresses whose email will always be accepted and delivered without filtering. Enter one address per line.
5. In the Block text field, enter a list of sender addresses whose email should never be accepted for delivery. Enter one address per line.
6. Optionally, click to put a checkmark next to Reject Spam to prevent spam messages from being delivered at all.
7. For Filter accounts only, from the Filter Delivery drop-down list, choose the way in which you want to handle spam messages.
- Use Domain Setting—Use the filteronly delivery option set at the domain level.
- passthrough—Spam messages are quarantined by the OpenSRS email filters and are not delivered to your servers.
8. In the Spam Header field, enter the text that you want to be added to the header of spam messages. The format must begin with a capital letter but can be followed by anything, for example, X-Spam: Spam detected.
9. In the Spam Tag field, type the tag you want appended to the Subject line of all spam messages.
10. In the Spam Folder field, type the name of the folder to which you want all spam messages to be delivered.
11. From the Spam Level drop-down list, choose the level of aggressiveness for spam filtering. Choosing a level other than Normal causes the filtering engine to be more aggressive in labeling mail as spam. If you don't choose a blocking level, the user account uses the domain, company, or global default.
12. Click Update.
Setting domain-level spam handling
Domain-level spam settings take precedence over any company settings and are applied to all mailboxes in the domain if no mailbox-level spam settings exist.
In the Control Panel
To set the default spam handling for a domain
1. In the Email section of the Control Panel, click the Email Domains tab and then click the domain you want to modify.
2. Click the Settings tab.
3. In the User Inheritance section, click Edit.
4. In the Spam Detection Level area, click to put a check in the Override inherited value box, and then from the drop-down list, choose the level of aggressiveness for spam filtering. Choosing a level other than Normal causes the filtering engine to be more aggressive in labeling mail as spam. If you don't choose a blocking level, the user account uses the domain, company, or global default.
5. In the Spam Folder area, click to put a check in the Override inherited value box, and then enter the name of the folder to which you want all spam messages to be delivered.
6. In the Spam Header area, click to put a check in the Override inherited value box, and then enter the text that you want to be added to the header of spam messages. The format must begin with a capital letter but can be followed by anything, for example, X-Spam: Spam detected.
7. In the Spam Tag area, click to put a check in the Override inherited value box, and then type the tag you want appended to the Subject line of all spam messages.
8. Click Save.
In the MAC
To set the default spam handling for a domain
1. Log in to the Mail Administration Console (MAC).
For more information, see "What is the MAC?"
2. Navigate to the domain whose spam handling you want to edit. See “Searching in the Mail Administration Console (MAC)”.
3. In the Inheritable for Users section, in the Spam Tag field, enter the tag that you want to append to the Subject line of all spam messages.
4. In the Spam Header field, enter the tag that will be assigned to the header of spam messages.
5. In the Spam Folder field, enter the name of the folder to which you want all spam messages to be delivered.
6. From the Spam Level drop-down list, choose the aggressiveness level for the spam filtering.
Choosing a level other than Normal causes the filtering engine to be more aggressive in labeling mail as spam; however, it may also result in more false positives.
7. Click Update.
Setting spam delivery options for Filter accounts
Prior to May 27, 2010, the default for Filter accounts was to not deliver spam messages to end user folders. The spam was caught and quarantined by the OpenSRS email filters and not delivered to your servers. End users only saw the spam messages if they logged on to the OpenSRS Spam Portal to view and release the spam messages. If you want this process to continue, you can set the Filter Delivery option in the MAC to quarantine. If you have one or more Filter accounts that were created prior to May 27, 2010, the default setting for Filter Delivery is quarantine, and spam will continue to be quarantined by the OpenSRS email filters. If you did not have any filteronly accounts prior to May 27, 2010, or if you became a Reseller after May 27, 2010, the default setting for Filter Delivery is passthrough, and Spam messages will be identified as spam by the OpenSRS email filters and then they will be delivered to your servers, and your servers can then deliver the spam messages to the end users’ folders.
You can also specify a Spam Header tag that our filters will add to the spam message headers so that your system will know that the messages have already been identified as spam. If you have existing spam detection that is adding a header to spam messages, we recommend that you enter the same header in the Spam Header field so that OpenSRS spam detection will replicate the behavior of your current system. This way your mail system will be able to direct all the spam messages into the correct end user folder using existing filtering mechanisms.
Note: The Filter Delivery setting can be changed at the domain or company level. The domain level setting takes precedence, unless the domain level setting not specified, in which case, the Filter accounts inherit the setting from the Company level.
In the Control Panel
1. In the Email section of the Control Panel, navigate to the user you want to modify.
For more information, see "Viewing Email user accounts"
2. Click the user name.
The User page opens, displaying the User Settings tab.
3. In the Spam Filtering section, click Edit.
4. In the Filter Delivery area, click to put a check in the Override inherited value box, and then from the Filter Delivery drop-down list, choose the way in which you want to handle spam messages.
- Quarantine—Do not deliver spam messages to the Reseller’s server.
- Passthrough—Allow spam messages to be delivered to the Reseller’s designated mail server.
5. Optionally, in the Spam Header field, click to put a check in the Override inherited value box, and then enter the text that you want to be added to the header of spam messages. The format must begin with a capital letter but can be followed by anything, for example, X-Spam: Spam detected.
6. Click Save.
In the MAC
To specify the spam delivery method for Filter accounts
1. Log in to the Mail Administration Console (MAC).
For more information, see "What is the MAC?"
2. Navigate to the domain that you want to modify. See “Searching in the Mail Administration Console (MAC)”.
3. In the Inheritable for Users section, from the Filter Delivery drop-down list, choose the way in which you want spam messages to be handled by the OpenSRS email filters:
- blank (use company setting)—Use the option set at the Company level.
- quarantine—Do not deliver spam messages to the Reseller’s server.
- passthrough—Allow spam messages to be delivered to the Reseller’s designated mail filtering server.
4. Optionally, in the Spam Header field, specify the tag that will be assigned to the header of spam messages. The format must begin with a capital letter but can be followed by anything, for example, X-Spam: Spam detected.
5. Click Update.
Setting company-level spam handling
Company-level settings for spam handling are applied to domains and mailboxes within the domains only if there are no existing domain- or mailbox-level settings.
In the Control Panel
To set company-level default spam handling
1. In the Email section of the Control Panel, click Settings.
2. In the Domain and User Inheritance section, click Edit.
3. In the Spam Detection Level area, click to put a check in the Override inherited value box, and then from the drop-down list, choose the level of aggressiveness for spam filtering. Choosing a level other than Normal causes the filtering engine to be more aggressive in labeling mail as spam. If you don't choose a blocking level, the user account uses the domain, company, or global default.
4. In the Spam Folder area, click to put a check in the Override inherited value box, and then enter the name of the folder to which you want all spam messages to be delivered.
5. In the Spam Header area, click to put a check in the Override inherited value box, and then enter the text that you want to be added to the header of spam messages. The format must begin with a capital letter but can be followed by anything, for example, X-Spam: Spam detected.
6. In the Spam Tag area, click to put a check in the Override inherited value box, and then type the tag you want appended to the Subject line of all spam messages.
7. Click Save.
In the MAC
To set company-level default spam handling
1. Log in to the Mail Administration Console (MAC).
For more information, see "What is the MAC?"
2. In the navigation pane, click your company name.
3. In the Spam Tag field, type the tag that you want appended to the Subject line of all spam messages.
4. In the Spam Header field, enter the tag that will be assigned to the header of spam messages.
5. In the Spam Folder field, type the name of the folder to which you want all spam delivered.
6. From the Spam Level drop-down list, choose the aggressiveness level for the spam filtering.
Choosing a level other than Normal causes the filtering engine to be more aggressive in labeling mail as spam; however, it may also result in more false positives.
7. Click Update.
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