Configuring email filters for inbound Internet mail
Configure email filters to allow users to receive email from people whose messages would otherwise be blocked or to block email that is not normally blocked but that your users do not want to receive.
About this task
- Address filters act based on the sender address. You can create multiple address filters.
- Keyword filters are based on an email category. Newsletter is the only Keyword category currently supported.
- Attachment filters apply to messages that contain attachment files. You can create one filter for each of the attachment categories listed in Table 1.
In addition to creating filters, you can customize the service spam filter by allowing email that matches the filter to be delivered to the Inbox or the Junk folder. Delivering email that matches the service spam filter to the Inbox is not recommended unless your company applies its own filtering software to mail before it is routed to the service.
The number of all filters, excluding the spam filter, cannot exceed 100.
The service malware, anti-virus, and phishing filters are not configurable and take precedence over all other filters.
Perform the following steps to configure email filters for inbound Internet mail.
Procedure
Results
The changes take effect immediately.
Effort is taken to avoid the inclusion of legitimate email such as order and flight reservation confirmations, invoices, or other mail lists in the newsletter filter. However, if users consider an email that matches the newsletter filter or another filter to be legitimate, and you configure the filter to deliver matching email to the Junk folder, users can use the Remove Sender from Junk List option. Selecting this option delivers future email from a sender to the Inbox.
Example
The following table provides examples of addresses that match and do not match rules in address filters.
Address rule | Matching addresses | Non-matching addresses |
---|---|---|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The following table provides an example filter configuration that blocks spam and then blocks the delivery of email that is sent from asingh@bos.renovations.com and cfield@ny.renovations.com.
Number | Filter name | Rule | Action |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Spam: System Filter | Spam as defined by the service | Block |
2 | Addresses: Two renovations addresses |
|
Block |
The following table provides an example filter configuration that blocks spam, then blocks email from any subdomain of renovations.com (for example, email from cfield@ny.renovations.com but not branney@renovations.com), and then allows newsletters to be delivered to the Junk folder.
Number | Name | Rule | Action |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Spam: System Filter | Spam as defined by the service | Block |
2 | Addresses: Renovations subdomains | *@*.renovations.com | Block |
3 | Keywords: Newsletters | Newsletters as defined by the service | Filter (deliver to Junk folder) |
The following table provides an example filter configuration that blocks email from branney@renovations.com and s.daryn@renovations.com, then allows all other email from the renovations.com domain, and then delivers spam to the Junk folder. Email from renovations.com that matches the spam filter is delivered to the Inbox because in this case processing stops after the second filter is applied.
Number | Filter name | Rule | Action |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Addresses: Two renovations addresses |
|
Block |
2 | Addresses: Renovations | *@renovations.com | Allow (deliver to Inbox) |
3 | Spam: System Filter | Spam as defined by the service | Filter (deliver to Junk folder) |