Tip: You may not have a “Junk E-mail” folder for Web-based email accounts like Gmail and Yahoo. Those online mail services usually have their own spam filters.
The Junk filter’s factory setting is Low, meaning that only the most obvious spam gets sent to the “Junk E-mail” folder. You’ll probably still get a ton of spam, but at least almost no legitimate mail will get mistakenly classified as spam. You can configure the level of security you want in the Junk E-Mail Options window, shown in Figure 12-12. Figure 12-12: To visit this dialog box, choose ToolsÆSafety Options. Choose No Automatic Filtering, Low, High, or Safe List Only. You can also opt to permanently delete suspected spam instead of moving it to the Junk E-Mail folder. No matter what setting you choose, though, always go through the Junk E-Mail folder every few days to make sure you haven’t missed any important messages that were flagged as spam incorrectly.
Junk E-Mail Safety Options Junk E-Mail Safety Options offers six tabs. The Options tab is shown in Figure 12-12. These are the other tabs: •• Safe Senders. Messages from any contacts, email addresses, or domain names that you add to this list are never treated as junk email. (A domain name is what comes after the @ sign in an email address, as in bob@herbalviagra.com.) Click Add to begin. Tip: The two checkboxes below the list are also useful in preventing “false positives.” The first, “Also trust e-mail from my Contacts,” means that anyone in your own address book is not a spammer. The second, “Automatically add people I e-mail to the Safe Senders list,” means that if you send mail to somebody, it’s someone you don’t consider a spammer.