Guide to Personal Email Filters

Most email clients have a way for users to “whitelist” a sender so that messages from that sender aren’t filtered to the junk folder.

We want your subscribers to see your messages in their inboxes. So, I investigated major email programs to find out what subscribers should do, step by step, to ensure they see your messages.

Mozilla Thunderbird

By default, Thunderbird will not mark your messages as junk if you are in your subscriber’s Address Book. Thunderbird users can check their settings at Tools> Junk Mail Controls.

Thunderbird Junk Mail Controls

To add you to their address book, subscribers should create a New Address Book Card under File > New…

Thunderbird New Contact

Yahoo! Mail (Old)

Yahoo! users should create a filter to direct all messages from you to their inbox. To do this, they:

View a screenshot walkthrough.

Yahoo! Mail (New)

Users of the new Yahoo! mail should also create a filter. Yahoo! currently redirects you to the old mail interface to set up the filter, but in the future should integrate the “Add Filter” page directly into the new interface.

New Yahoo Mail Beta Filters Link

Hotmail

Hotmail uses a “Safe List” that your subscribers should add you to:

View a screenshot walkthrough.

Windows Live Mail

Not surprisingly, Windows Live Mail works similarly to Hotmail.

View a screenshot walkthrough.

GMail

GMail will automatically deliver mail from a user’s Contacts list to the inbox.

To add a Contact:

View a screenshot walkthrough.

AOL Webmail

AOL Webmail has a “Custom Sender List” that users can specify. However, to use the Custom Sender List, users must choose either to accept mail ONLY from their custom senders, or to reject mail ONLY from their custom senders.

So, you need to make sure they are able to receive mail from “all senders.”

If they are already using a Custom Sender List to define who can mail them, you’ll want to make sure they put you on it.

View a screenshot walkthrough.

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By: Justin Premick
Director of Education Marketing

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2 Comments

  1. It’s not the most commonly used emailer, but Pegasus Mail (http://www.pmail.com) has added some very effective spam filtering capabilities in the latest version.

    To add a sender to the whitelist, just right-click on the message, while open or in the list of messages, and select this option on the menu that pops up:

    Add sender’s address to | Global whitelist

    No mail from that sender will be subject to the content-based or Bayesian filters in the future. Note that any user-specific filter rules you have added will affect the message.

    11/30/2006 1:38 pm

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