Creating a Spam Filter in Apple Mail

1. If you don't have a Junk folder, create one by clicking the "Plus" at the bottom left.
2. Go into the "Mail" menu > "Preferences" > click the "Rules" icon.
3. Click the "Add Rule" button.
4. In description, name it "Spam filter." In the drop down menu, click "Edit Header List."
5. Click the "Plus" and type exactly "X-Spam-Level"
6. Click "OK"
7. Choose the newly created "X-Spam-Level" from the drop down menu. Put in five s's: "sssss"
8. In the next menu, choose "move message to the Junk folder" you created.

Spam and s levels

When e-mails are received at the University of Richmond, they are processed by a software package called "Spam Assassin" that assigns a spam score to each message. If there is a very high likelihood that an e-mail message contains spam, the mail header will contain a large number of s's. For example, the following score indicates that there is a high likelihood that the message is spam:

X-Spam-Level: ssssssssssssssssssss

If there is a very low likelihood that an e-mail message contains spam, the mail header will contain few if any s's.  For example:

X-Spam-Level: sssss

If you feel that too many spam messages are getting through to your inbox, remove s's from the filter. If you feel that too many legitimate messages are being scored as spam, add s's to the filter.