unsolicited e-mails

[andy007]

Hi All

I heard somewhere that you can view e-mails without opening them first and it is possible to see the first line or so to check it does NOT contain unsolicited or xxx material. Having looked in my system I cannot find any reference to this. I have recently been hit with such as have most of the population of Devon and we are all up in arms about it. I have a spam filter set up with BT (uk) but they still get through and also ZA. I have also used the Block Sender facility but they change their e-mail address often.

My system : Win 98se Outlook Express 6

Please can anyone shed some light on this?

With thanks

Andy

[Miz]

To view the contents of a message without opening it, right click on the message header, go to Properties, then go to the Details tab, click on Message Source button. Apparently, it's the essentially the same as View Source when right-clicking a web page.

[andy007]

Hi Miz

Thanks for responding. I tried what you suggested but it still opens them. I have my new list of unopened envelopes on the screen, move the cursor over one, it highlights itself in blue, I then r-click and sometimes even before I get the General / Properties tabs I can see in the background the message open.
Is there something in the set-up of OE6 that needs looking at, maybe in the defaults which is not obvious to me?

Andy

[Tweaker]

I use Mail Washer, it works directly with your email server, exactly like your email program does. But there is one important difference: you can tell MailWasher to delete a message at the server, without downloading it - or you can bounce an email back to the sender so that it looks as though your address is not valid.

MailWasher retrieves information about all the emails on the server. With that information (some of which is also processed by MailWasher) you can decide what to do with each individual email - download, delete, or bounce back.

Give it a try.

[earl]

I also use it, you can also black list certain addresses, opening unsolicied emails or unsubscibing to same often is just telling who or what! they have hit a vaild email address opening you up for a spam onslaught! Incidentally I have just installed Googles new beta toolbar it has a popup stopper that works!!! in 2 weeks it has blocked 169!

[BlackKnight]

I'll third Mailwasher

[tramtwo]

I like it so much I bought the company. erum Pro version.

andy007 There is a solution for you within Outlook Express. (sorta)

Go to Tools and then Options. Remove the check from the Automatically Download message when viewing in the Preview Pane. May need to reboot to get this change to stick.

This will not let you see the email but you can atleast see the header.

Hope this helps.

[Miz]

You said, "I can see in the background the message open"...does it open in its own window or is it opening in a pane at the bottom of the OE window?

If the latter, go into OE's View>Layout and uncheck "Show preview pane," click OK. In order to open any message without the preview pane, you will have to double-click the header.

Mail Washer does do the job of viewing and deleting messages at the server level so I provided the above information in case you don't want to use third-party software.

[andy007]

Wow!!!
What a response! Thanks to each and every one of you for taking the time to write back. I will give all this help a go and let you know how I got on.

With much thanks again ...

Andy