Filtering Your Mail for the First Time

After you have completed the Set-Up Assistant, you can filter for the first time by choosing Start Filtering from the Spamfire Filemenu or clicking the Start Filtering button in the Spamfire toolbar. Spamfire will connect to the email server for each account you imported in the Set-Up Assistant, filter the mail, and show you the results in the main Spamfire Mail window.

The first time Spamfire filters your email, it may make quite a few mistakes. You should review all the decisions it makes so you can make corrections and train Spamfire to be more intelligent about future email. Here's how to train Spamfire the first time:

1. Choose Show Spam from the View menu. The Spamfire Mail Window will show you all the messages Spamfire thought were spam.
   
   
2. Look through the list for good messages that were intercepted incorrectly. When you see a good message, click it once and then click the Is Good button in the toolbar, or choose Mark as Good from the Message menu.


3. You may also choose to click the Is Friend button for some messages. That will mark the message as good and also add it to the Spamfire Friends List, so Spamfire will always accept email from that sender in the future.
   
   
4. The messages you mark as good or as friends will disappear from the list.
   
   
5. Now choose Show Good Mail from the View menu. The Spamfire Mail Window will show you all the messages Spamfire thought were good.
   
   
6. Look for spam messages in this list. If you find any, click them once and then click the Is Spam button in the toolbar or choose Mark as Spam from the Message menu.The messages you mark as spam will disappear from the list.


7. If you want Spamfire to learn with maximum possible speed, you can also take the extra, optional step of confirming Spamfire's borderline email decisions. Choose Show Borderline Mail from the View menu. Select all the spam messages in this list and click the Is Spam button in the toolbar. Then select all the good messages in this list and click Is Good. This will confirm Spamfire's filtering decisions and make Spamfire quicker to recognize similar messages in the future.


8. If you have set up Spamfire to work as a helper, you should now filter again by clicking the Start Filtering button in the toolbar. Spamfire will connect again to your email server and synchronize the corrections you made.

Now you can open your email program and check your email. Your email program will retrieve all the good messages, and none of the spam messages.

The corrections you made will train Spamfire to be more accurate with future messages. You may find that you still need to make numerous corrections the next few times you check your email. After Spamfire has seen between 50 and 100 email messages, it should start being more accurate. You will need to make fewer and fewer corrections as time goes by.

For more details about day-to-day use, please read browsing messages, the icon and score legend, correcting Spamfire's decisions, and other topics in the Using Spamfire section of this manual.