Spam Filtering

SmarterMail provides various antispam features that assist in keeping users' inboxes free from unwanted emails. Within the Spam Filtering section, users can review and configure spam filtering settings and trusted senders for their accounts. To access the spam filtering setup, log into SmarterMail and click on the Menu icon to navigate to the Settings section. Then, select Spam Filtering from the navigation panel.

Typically, a System or Domain Administrator has preconfigured the spam filtering options for your domain. However, if permitted, you can modify these settings to establish your own preferences for filtering out potentially undesirable emails.

Options

• Override spam settings for this account - Activate this option to personalize the handling of spam and to override the settings established by the Domain Administrator. If this setting is off, the domain's default spam filtering policy will be visible and cannot be altered.

By overriding the spam configurations set by your Administrator, you can determine the actions taken for incoming emails that have a low, medium, or high likelihood of being spam. For each spam level, specify the desired action. If you opt to append text to the subject line of messages, enter the text in the box provided beneath the action dropdown.

Trusted Senders

Users can designate certain email addresses (like jsmith@example.com) or domains (like example.com) to be exempt from spam filtering. This informs the system that these messages originate from a trusted source, ensuring that emails from friends, business contacts, and mailing lists are not blocked or redirected to the Junk Email folder. By default, every contact in a user's Contacts list is treated as a trusted sender and bypasses spam filtering.

Important Note: If SPF and DKIM spam checks are active, SmarterMail will perform these checks on ALL emails, including those from trusted senders, whitelisted IP addresses, and IP bypasses. Since anyone can manipulate any return path when sending a message, this additional check helps guard against spammers inundating users with numerous messages that do not genuinely originate from a trusted sender. If an incoming message fails an SPF or DKIM check, the trusted sender status will be disregarded, and all enabled spam checks will apply. The specific spam check results that will override the trusted sender status include SPF_Fail, SPF_Softfail, SPF_PermError, or DKIM_Fail.

If the trusted sender status of an email is disregarded due to an unsuccessful SPF or DKIM check, the TotalSpamWeight line in the email header will be displayed in this format:

X-SmarterMail-TotalSpamWeight: {Total Spam Weight} ({Source of the trusted sender status}, {Reason for bypassing the trusted sender status})

For instance:

X-SmarterMail-TotalSpamWeight: 9 (Trusted Sender - Domain, failed SPF)

This sample indicates that the sender is included in the domain-level Trusted Senders list, yet the email received a total spam weight of 9 because the message did not pass the SPF check.

When adding trusted senders or domains, ensure that you enter one item per line break.

Blocked Senders

Users have the option to add specific accounts to their Blocked Senders list. For example, upon receiving a message from dan@im-a-spammer.com, you can left-click on the email address in the message view and select "Block Sender" from the context menu. By doing this, that message and any future messages from that particular sender will have the Action set on the Blocked Senders card applied. This feature allows users to exercise more precise control over senders that bypass the spam filtering established by the system administrator. NOTE: Any Action specified on the Blocked Senders card is applicable solely for the user who sets them—these Actions are not domain-wide or system-wide and only apply to the specific user who created them.

Regarding the Actions themselves, they include:

• None - No action is taken regarding messages from Blocked Senders.
• Move To Junk Email Folder - Messages are transferred to the Junk folder and then processed according to whatever rules pertain to that folder (e.g., auto-clean rules).
• Move To Deleted Items Folder - Messages are relocated to the Deleted Items folder and handled by applicable rules for that folder (e.g., auto-clean rules).
• Delete - The messages are simply deleted and cannot be recovered.

Any address marked for blocking will be listed in the Blocked Senders list. By clicking the pencil icon, users can review and potentially edit their blocked senders list. Users may also manually input addresses instead of solely using the context menu from their message view.