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An enclosure blocker rule for Mail Apps
I have created a new, relatively simple rule that traps most of the new image spam and virus-enclosure email messages in their tracks, so I thought I'd share. In Mail, create a new rule (in Mail -> Preferences -> Rules), with this setup:
  • Choose All on the conditions line.
  • Change the first condition line to: Any Attachment Name - Contains - then type a period in the last box.
  • Click the + button to add a second condition, and set it to Sender is not in my Address Book.
  • Set the Action for this new rule to Move message to mailbox Junk.
I know it seems simple, but it's been very effective in stopping the new breed of image spam *and* all of those spam messages with an enclosed .pif file. Rather than picking through over 100 emails per day in my inbox, I just scan the mail in the old Junk folder and delete them all in one step.

[robg adds: This should work well for most people, who tend not to receive attachments from non-regular correspondents. If, like me, you do receive such attachments, you might wish to modify the 'attachment contains' portion of the rule -- specify .PIF, for instance, instead of just a period.]
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An enclosure blocker rule for Mail | 5 comments | Create New Account
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An enclosure blocker rule for Mail
Authored by: BMarsh on Dec 18, '06 08:11:21AM

if you put this rule after other rules, or have the rule ignore any people in your addressbook, it should catch all of the spam in the same way, without taking out mail you do want.



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coloured backgrounds; separate rules for .gif, .jpg
Authored by: hayne on Dec 18, '06 08:55:47AM

I haven't yet encountered the .pif attachments in spam, but I have been getting a lot of spam with .gif and .jpg attachments.
So I have been using similar rules (separate ones for .gif and .jpg) for classifying such messages as Junk.

My rules have a very useful additional action - they set the colour of the background to something that stands out (e.g. purple) so that I can easily see which of the messages in my Junk mail box were classified via these rules.
That makes it easier to check that none of them were misclassified - especially useful when first testing a rule.



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Good call
Authored by: lullabud on Dec 18, '06 10:58:32AM

I'm defintiely going to have to give this one a try.



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An enclosure blocker rule for Mail
Authored by: simsamsep on Dec 18, '06 03:04:41PM

These are the rules I have set for image spam. It works perfectly for me so far:

- If [all] of the following conditions are met:

- [Content-Type] [Contains] [multipart/related]
(Use "Edit Header List" at the bottom of the menu to create this rule.)

- [Any Attachment Name] [Contains] [.gif]

- [Sender is not in my Address Book]

- [Sender is not in my Previous Recipients]

Perform the following actions:

- [Move Message] to mailbox: [Junk]



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An enclosure blocker rule for Mail
Authored by: Bassman59 on Dec 21, '06 03:40:47PM

This is very useful.

The mail preference "PreferPlainText" used to block images, but at some point Mail was updated and now sometimes embedded images (not images hosted on a remote server) are displayed. Since anyone who isn't in my address book shouldn't be sending me pictures (or any other attachments), this new hint is useful as it assumes mail with attachments from unknown senders is junk.



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