Phone Lines icon GFI Support Home

Articles in this section

See more

Configuring MailEssentials Spam Actions

Author: Luis Fernandes Updated

Overview

The Actions tab in the properties of the Anti-Spam filters defines what should be done with emails marked as spam. This is the most important configuration tab in MailEssentials as it is what determines the fate of an email flagged as possible spam.

This article explains the different Spam Actions that can be defined for the various spam filters once an email has been identified as spam.

Introduction

When MailEssentials filters an email as Spam, it will perform the action(s) configured for the specific module that was triggered by the email.

All the Anti-Spam filters and scanning modules will have an Actions tab where you configure the desired action should the particular module or engine flag an email as spam. The next section lists down all the possible actions accompanied by a description of what that setting does to the flagged email.

Note: Different actions can be defined for each of the spam filters. For example, you can choose to delete emails detected by SpamRazer filter, but not delete emails marked as spam by the Email Blocklist filter.

Back to top

Description

In the Actions tab, select an option that defines which action to take on emails marked as spam.

89.png

The following are the actions and a brief description

Action Description
Quarantine Email Emails detected as spam are stored in the Quarantine Store. Other spam actions are disabled if the email is quarantined. For more information, refer to the MailEssentials Quarantine Feature article.
Delete Email Delete an email blocked by that particular spam filter. Other spam actions are disabled if the email is deleted.
Deliver email to mailbox - In Inbox

Routes spam to user's inbox
Deliver email to mailbox - In Exchange junk email folder

Routes spam to users' Junk email folder. This option only works when GFI MailEssentials is installed on Microsoft Exchange. It is not available for the New Senders filter.

If GFI MailEssentials is not installed on the Microsoft® Exchange Server, refer to Moving spam to user’s mailbox folders.
Deliver email to mailbox - In Exchange mailbox sub-folder

Route all spam to a specific folder in the user’s mailbox. Type the folder where to move spam email.

  • Example 1: Type Suspected Spam for a custom folder to be created in the same level of the Inbox folder.
  • Example 2: Type Inbox\Suspected Spam for a custom folder to be created in the Inbox folder.

This option requires that GFI MailEssentials is installed on the Microsoft® Exchange Server machine.

In Microsoft® Exchange 2010 onwards, the Mailbox Server Role is required.

For Microsoft® Exchange 2010 or newer versions, a dedicated user is also required to enable this option. For more information, refer to Setting a Microsoft® Exchange account.

If GFI MailEssentials is not installed on the Microsoft® Exchange Server, refer to Moving spam email to user’s mailbox folders.
Send to email address

Send email identified as spam to a specific email address.

For example, forward all spam to an email address checked by someone who checks email that might have been wrongly marked as spam.

The subject of the email will be in the format: [recipient] [subject]
Move to folder on disk

Saves email detected as spam to the path specified,

For example, C:\Spam\

File names of saved emails are in the following format:

[Sender_recipient_subject_number_.eml]

For example, C:\Spam\jim@ad.com_bob@ad.com_Offers_1_.eml
Tag the email with specific text

Select this option to add a tag to the email subject. Key in the text to use for tagging and specify where to place the tag:

  • Prepend to subject - insert the specified tag at the start (i.e. as a prefix) of the email subject text.

For example, [SPAM]Free Web Mail

  • Append to subject - insert the specified tag at the end (i.e. as a suffix) of the email subject text.

For example, Free Web Mail[SPAM]

  • Add tag in an X-header - Add the specified tag as a new X-header to the email. In this case, the X-Header will have the following format :
    • X-GFIME-SPAM: [TAG TEXT]
    • X-GFIME-SPAM-REASON: [REASON]
      • For example,
        • X-GFIME-SPAM: [This is SPAM]
        • X-GFIME-SPAM-REASON: [IP DNS Blocklist Check failed - Sent from Blocklisted Domain]

NOTE: Rules manager can be used to move emails when this feature is used.
Append block reason to email subject If this option is enabled, the name of the filter which blocked the email and the reason for blocking is appended to the subject of the blocked email.
Log rule occurrence to this file

Log the spam email occurrence to a log file of your choice. By default, log files are stored in:

<GFI_MailEssentials_installation_path>\GFI\MailEssentials\AntiSpam\Logs\<filtername>.log

NOTE: Log files may become very large. MailEssentials enables log rotation, where new log files are created periodically or when the log file reaches a specific size. To enable log file rotation, navigate to Anti-Spam > Anti-Spam Settings. Select the Anti-spam logging tab and check Enable log file rotation. Specify the rotation condition by time or file size.

 

Related Articles

Back to top

Related articles