I think I might have sorted out my spam problem...

[lostcarpark]

Like many, I've had a growing spam problem over the last few years. I've been looking at various solutions, but most of them either require an email server I have control of, or for me to sever the ties to my own domain. The first is currently not available to me, and the second I've been reluctant to do.

I have a very simple web based email client, which I'm reluctant to give up as I can access my email just about anywhere, including at work, where most of the mainstream webmail clients are blocked.

I have been experimenting with various mail accounts over the years, but I've been quite impressed by Gmail, and its spam filtering. It quite kindly offers email forwarding and pop access, which gave me an idea.

First I tried setting up POP access to the Gmail account. Unfortunately this only works through SSL, which my email client is far too primitive to cope with. I had a quick look at what it might entail, and I reckon it would be an interesting project, but not something that's gonna happen tonight.

The other option was to set the Gmail account to forward everything that arrives in the Inbox to a new account. I create a new account on my domain, and forward the Gmail account to it. I then set a test account that gets a fair bit of spam to forward to the Gmail account.

I check back a little later. The Gmail account tells me it has half a dozen new spam messages, which it correctly filters into the spam folder, and one real message (sent by me from another account as a test, but still a real message). I check my new mailbox, the one Gmail is forwarding to. Only my test message has been forwarded. Success!

I have now forwarded my main mailbox to the Gmail account, and it's working like a dream. When I'm at home, I can use Gmail to access it directly and use the sorting and searching options, and when I'm away I can check for new messages through my own site and not get a load of Spam.

I though I'd mention this, as it might be useful to anyone with a Spam problem

Comments

[hawkida.livejournal.com]

I'm doing similar - except I'm able to collect direct from gmail instead of re-forwarding it. It catches about 95% of my spam (which is quite a lot). I've only ever spotted 1 false positive.

[lostcarpark.livejournal.com]

Yes. Instead of about 50 spam messages making it into my mailbox last night, I received 2. I received about 3 spams during the day today. I'll have to wait till I get home to see how many messages are in the Spam folder in Gmail, but so far it seems to be a success.

Of course the time it will really make a big difference is next time I go on holidays.

[jamesb.livejournal.com]

but what about mails you dont get???

James

[lostcarpark.livejournal.com]

That's a problem, and I think this will solve a large part of it. Too often I have selected a bunch of junk mail and hit delete only to spot a real one just as they disappear forever. In the last couple of days about ten junk mails have made it through to my inbox, so it was a simple matter to get rid of them. In the same time, about 300 have been filtered into Gmail's spam folder. I've only spotted one false positive, and that was from a mailing list I subscribed to, but wouldn't be too bothered if I missed (and it's not hard to see how their mails could be mistaken for spam).

The second part is that sometimes emails just don't show up. I have raised the issue with my webhost. One recent example is that is that someone from Tesco.net was trying to email me, but none of their mails have arrived. When they mail the Gmail account directly they get through with no problems.

If I don't get a satisfactory resolution, I will look at moving hosts. Email is never 100% reliable, but my seems to be affected worse than most.