Tracy, HTML e-mail is almost always spam. I get a couple HTMLs from friends, but they're in my address book, so are allowed by my filters. Thus, it's easy to set a filter direct any HTML mail to "Death Row."
Here's how I do my filters, if it may be of help: 1. Allow anyone in my address book. My first mail action "If From Is in address book, Set the message's priority to Priority 16." (I set priorities so I can see instantly which mail action affected a given e-mail.) 2. Allow all newsletters, mailing lists, and vendors I want to see. My filters route those e-mails into individual folders/subfolders. At this point, *most* everything else is spam. I say "most" because I sometimes get mail from a new "friendly," such as a new customer or someone whose address isn't yet in my address book. 3. Zap known spammers. I have a single filter for known spammers, to which I occasionally add new ones. (Cut & paste an address from a piece of spam, and add it to the filter. A few clicks keeps it current.) This mail action runs an AppleScript that shreds 'em immediately and sends any attachments to the Trash. I never even see 'em! What remains is the "questionable" stuff that needs visual scanning. It all goes to my "Shred" folder. A sane person could simply direct all remaining mail there, scan it, shred or delete the crap, and be done. I, alas, have grown rather fond of studying this junk. This curiosity has engendered a hobby of sorts. So I take it a few steps farther: 4. All HTML mail gets a priority and goes to "Shred." This lets me find new offenders to add to my known spammer list, never to be seen again. Filter for "Internet header Content-Type Contains 'text/html' or 'multipart'" and also "Internet header Message-ID contains '<>' -- stuff like that. Sometimes there's no attachment -- the body of the message contains the HTML code. In that case search for "Message body Contains '<html>'". If that doesn't catch it, '<meta http-equiv=', '<body bgcolor=', or '<a href=' (picks up links) will. I just include all four of these my Check Internet Headers mail action. 5. Mail from foreign domains is assigned a priority and sent to "Shred." Aside from the occasional international friend or customer, this is all spam, too. Filter for "From Ends with .dk, .kr, .nl," or any other weird two-letter domain. 6. My final, miscellaneous action still nabs a few (and of course, assigns a priority and sends 'em to "Shred"). Here's where I look for the usual spammer-speak, like 'MLM', 'multi-level', the ubiquitous 'viagra' references, 'This is not spam' (seriously!), 'nigeria', 'personalized domain', ad infinitum. :^) So ... Normal folks can do fine with the first two steps, essentially "Allow Friends," and then scan everything else before trashing. The added steps just help to keep a person from having to scan the same crap over and over each day. And I highly recommend the AppleScripts (Dave's Essential Scripts) I mentioned in an earlier post. One of the scripts will automatically permanently delete any selected mail in the In Box and move any attachments directly to the Mac's Trash. It works from Emailer's pull-down AppleScript menu and from within mail actions. Get it here: <http://www.fogcity.com/files/Emailer/2.0/DavesEssentialScripts2.0.hqx>. Heckuva time saver! Sorry for the length, but I hope it's been helpful. If you (or anyone) would like, I could post my mail actions somewhere for you to download and import, perhaps saving you a little time. -- Mike ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe send a mail message with a SUBJECT line of "unsubscribe" to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
