Below are a few more ideas for filters that may be helpful. Several of these filters and the filters mentioned on the Personal AntiSpam Filters page are available in a preconfigured, downloadable, and easy to install format on the Downloadable AntiSpam Filters page.
- Create a filter to delete any e-mail whose Subject line begins with “Adv”, followed by a colon or space. Some spammers do users the favor of beginning their Subject lines this way, to allow users to filter out the spam (presumably leaving less experienced users to read the spam for their own enjoyment). For example, this e-mail would be deleted by such a filter: Subject: Adv: Huge Opportunity !!!
Just make sure the filter doesn’t match on “Adv” without a colon or space character following; if it did, it would delete e-mails with Subject lines like “advocacy” or “advertising campaign results”.
By the way, most mail filters are not case-sensitive, so most e-mail programs won’t require setting up filters for both “adv:” and “ADV:”. Common Subject lines
- Create a filter to delete any e-mail whose Subject line contains any of these common spam phrases:
- FREE CASH
- FREE Long Distance!!
- Find Background Info About ANYONE
- Email Advertising Works
- QUIT SMOKING IN
- Be Your Own Boss!
- INCREASE ENERGY LEVELS BY
- For Serious Marketers ONLY!
- 100% LEGAL WAY TO Herbal Viagra
These filters should match not on a Subject line that is the exact phrase, but instead a Subject line that contains the phrase. This is because some spam Subject lines end with an ID number, or begin with “Re:” to throw off mail filters.
- Other filters to purgatory
Several words are common in spam Subjects but might also appear in the a legitimate e-mail. Filters on these words would file the e-mail in purgatory, if the word appears on the Subject line:
- Free Mortgage
- Inkjet
- University Diploma
- Life Insurance
