Click for SpamPal's Homepage
Contents > Email Programs > Outlook Express

This page gives instructions on installing and setting-up SpamPal for use with the e-mail client program,
Outlook Express

Quick Index

1. Install SpamPal

2. Configure SpamPal

3. Configure your email program
3.1 Change your POP3 settings
3.2 Change your IMAP4 Settings
3.3 Change your SMTP settings
3.4 Create Filter/Message rules

4. Email Virus Scanners and Firewalls

5. Whitelist friends and contacts
5.1 Export your contacts email addresses

1. Install SpamPal

Start installation by double-clicking on the SpamPal Setup program (spampal.exe) and follow the on-screen instructions. Upon completion, SpamPal will run, showing its pink umbrella icon in your system tray.

If this installation is an upgrade of SpamPal then the existing configuration of Outlook Express is retained and the process is now complete. If not, i.e. this is a new installation of SpamPal, proceed with the steps below.


::Top::
2. Configure SpamPal
All you need to know about extra configuration can be found here

::Top::
3. Configure Your Email Program
Now you have set up SpamPal, you need to tell your email program to fetch your mail through the SpamPal proxy rather than directly from your ISP.

You need to how you collect mail from your ISP, for example, if you use POP3 to collect your mail then your only need to change your POP3 settings.

::Top::

3.1 Change your POP3 settings

Load Outlook Express, then select Accounts from the Tools menu, and select the Mail tab to see the available accounts, e.g.:
Accounts window
We'll start with the first account (most people will only have one). Select it and then click Properties. Go to the Servers tab of the window that comes up, which should look a bit like this:

Screen before changes:

Properties window
To reconfigure your email program, first make a careful note of your original settings.

You should append
whatever value you currently have in your Incoming (POP3) Server setting, to whatever you currently have in the Username field (seperated with a @ sign), and change the Incoming (POP3) Server setting to 127.0.0.1.

e.g. if
your original values were:

Incoming (POP3) Server: your.mailserver.com
Username: fred.bloggs

then you would, for example, change them to:

Incoming (POP3) Server: 127.0.0.1
Username:
fred.bloggs@your.mailserver.com

Screen after changes:

Properties window
Note 1: If your POP3 username already contains an @
continue regardless; SpamPal copes with usernames that contain two @s without difficulty.
Note 2: if you got the message about SpamPal not being able to use the standard POP3 port...
You may, at this point, get an error message about SpamPal not being able to listen on the standard POP3 port.This is nothing to be worried about; just write down the port number SpamPal tells you and continue with this guide

This message means SpamPal is using Port
1110 instead of 110. You don't have to put it into SpamPal because SpamPal already knows it is using port 110. Instead, you have to tell your email program (for example Outlook Express) to use port 1110 instead of 110.

To do this, first install SpamPal. Then set up OE, exactly as given in the instructions. In addition, if you go to
Tools, Accounts, Properties and click on the Advanced tab, you will see that you have a box labelled Incoming Mail (POP3) which currently says 110. You need to change this to 1110.
Note 3: If the server requires authentication box under outgoing mail server is checked...
Click the Settings... button beside it. Now, select Log on using and enter your original username and password i.e.. What they were before you modified the username to install SpamPal

Note 4: If your POP3 server doesn't use the default POP3 port (110)...
Amend the port number to the server name in the login name field using a colon. For example, if BlueYonder ran their POP3 server on port 8090, I'd end up with a login name of jf004d7582@pop3.blueyonder.co.uk:8090
Note 5: If the server name already is localhost
Don't worry; just add @localhost to the username and leave the server name as is
Typical POP3 Server Examples (do not use directly)
Eg. 1: the original values of:
Eg. 1: should be changed to new values of:
Incoming Mail (POP3):mail.btopenworld.com Incoming Mail (POP3): 127.0.0.1
Username: fred.bloggs Username: fred.bloggs@mail.btopenworld.com
Eg. 2: the original values of:
Eg. 2: should be changed to new values of:
Incoming Mail (POP3): pop.west.cox.net Incoming Mail (POP3): 127.0.0.1
Username:  johnsmith Username:johnsmith@pop.west.cox.net
Eg. 3: the original values of:
Eg. 3: should be changed to new values of:
Incoming Mail (POP3): pop.telus.net Incoming Mail (POP3): 127.0.0.1
Username: fax07734 Username: fax07734@pop.telus.net
Eg. 4: the original values of:
Eg. 4: should be changed to new values of:
Incoming Mail (POP3): 192.168.1.1 Incoming Mail (POP3): 127.0.0.1
Username: mary_jones Username: mary_jones@192.168.1.1
Note 6: Server names
The above Incoming POP3 Server Name, can be called: Incoming Mail Server, POP3 server, POP3 Username or Account Name depending on your email program.

There are also two ways of specifying the
local server name, which should mean exactly the same thing (but on some system only one of them will work): localhost or 127.0.0.1
Now click OK to confirm, and repeat this for all the remaining accounts. When you're done, close the Accounts window.

Now try to check your mail; if you don't get any errors, continue to the next step. You may be asked to re-enter your POP3 passwords; this is nothing to worry about. If you get an error from Outlook Express, check that you've configured the incoming POP3 server to 127.0.0.1 and, if necessary, that the port has been set right. If you get an error from SpamPal, check you've added the servername to the username correctly, and that your Internet connection is active.

If there is a need to change you POP3, SMTP or IMAP ports, then start with the first account (most people will only have one). Select it and then click Properties. Go to the Advanced tab of the window that comes up, which should look a bit like this:
Note 7: Server timeouts
The default Server Timouts of 1 minute can be a little too small an amout when using SpamPal. If you are finding your email is timing out then perhaps increase this figure to 4 minutes.
If you are still having a problem with your username, why not give this simple setup page a try
Note 8: General connection problems


a) Many connection problems are caused because of firewalls. If you are using ZoneAlarm, it will pop up a box asking if SpamPal is to be allowed to access the Internet. You must answer yes to this, otherwise SpamPal cannot connect to your mailbox.

b) Many POP3 connection problems are caused because SpamPal is not running on Port 110. Did you get an error message at any point telling you that port 110 was in use? To check to see which ports SpamPal is using, right click on the umbrella icon in the tray to bring up SpamPal's Options window, click on connections, and confirm that the port number for the POP3 protocol is 110

c) Another common problem is that the POP3 port is running in the wrong mode. SpamPal can run in Any servername mode which is the recommended configuration, and Specific Server mode which is only used for special cases. The line in your connections config should read: 110 POP3 (any servername) If you do not have a line exactly like that, please click on the 110, click on the properties button, and change the setting to: POP3 (Any Servername).

d) When you try to connect to collect your mail, does SpamPal show any sign of activity? The umbrella icon in the tray shows an animation of it spinning when SpamPal is active. Also, if you keep the SpamPal status window open, you should see commands coming into the Active Connections window when SpamPal is active.


::Top::
3.2 Change your IMAP4 settings
Load Outlook Express, then select Accounts from the Tools menu, and select the Mail tab to see the available accounts, e.g.:
Accounts window
We'll start with the first account (most people will only have one). Select it and then click Properties. Go to the Servers tab of the window that comes up, which should look a bit like this:
You'll need to make changes to the Incoming Mail (IMAP) and Account Name fields.

Write down the name of your IMAP Server in the IMAP Server box (e.g..imap.yourisp.com) and then replace this with 127.0.0.1

Now add an @ symbol and the IMAP Server name that you wrote down earlier, to the Username logon box (e.g.. my_login_name@imap.yourisp.com)
Now click OK to confirm, and repeat this for all the remaining accounts. When you're done, close the Accounts window.

Now try to check your mail; if you don't get any errors, continue to the next step. You may be asked to re-enter your IMAP passwords; this is nothing to worry about. If you get an error from Outlook Express, check that you've configured the incoming IMAP server to 127.0.0.1 and, if necessary, that the port has been set right. If you get an error from SpamPal, check you've added the servername to the username correctly, and that your Internet connection is active.

When you check your mail, you should also notice that you only get non-spam email in your inbox, as the spam marked message are now in a new folder called spamtrap, which is created by SpamPal to store all your spam marked messages:


::Top::

3.3 Changing your SMTP settings

If you wish to use SpamPal's SMTP Proxy to auto-whitelist any email addresses that you send to, you will need to change Outlook Express's SMTP settings, as follows
Start with the first account (most people will only have one). Select it and then click Properties. Go to the Servers tab of the window that comes up, which should look a bit like this:
Properties window
Now, take a note of your current Outgoing Mail (SMTP) Server, for example: smtp.myisp.co.uk

Now change the current Outgoing Mail (SMTP) Server, to: 127.0.0.1

Now go to SpamPal's
Connections page:

Now click on Add port and change the Port Type to SMTP

Now, change the Server Name to the Outgoing Mail (SMTP) Server name, you noted down earlier,
e.g..smtp.myisp.co.uk

Now, whenever you send an email, SpamPal will automatically auto-whitelist it
Note: Never Auto-Whitelist option
Occasionally, a spammer might forge the email address of someone who is in your auto-whitelist - for example, a colleague or an alternate email address or yours. While you don't want to put this person in your blacklist because they send you lots of genuine email, you don't want them to end up in your auto-whitelist and bypass SpamPal's spam-checking features.

Clicking on the Exclusions pane will bring up a window into which you can enter the email addresses of people who should never be added to the auto-whitelist. Just add your colleagues here and you won't have to worry about spammers forging their addresses to bypass SpamPal's filtering. You can even add your entire employer's domain - e.g. *@acme-widgets.com

::Top::

3.4 Create Filter/Message Rules

If you are are using an IMAP4 server, you will not need to setup a filter/message rule on your email program,
as SpamPal moves any spam tagged messages automatically into a folder called
inbox.spamtrap on your
server.

If you are are using a
POP3 server and want your email program to automatically filter the SpamPal-marked messages into a separate Mailbox, so that you can more easily review them, continue as follows

Assuming you've already got a folder setup in Outlook Express for example, called spam, then:

Go to Message Rules in the Tools menu, and select Mail; this will bring up a list of all of the filters (or as Outlook Express calls them, rules) that are current set up. Click New to create a new one.

Normally we'd make a filter to transfer everything containing SpamPal's special header into a spam folder. However, since Outlook Express doesn't allow such advanced filters, we'll have to create a rule to detect anything with **SPAM** in the subject line. SpamPal will add this to any messages it thinks are spam; however, you'll have to be careful you don't change this to something else using SpamPal's Options dialog.

Firstly, select to filter when the subject line contains specific words, and an action move it to a specified folder. Now click the blue contains specified words in the box at the bottom; type **SPAM** (without the quotes) into the field at the top of the window that appears, and click Add to add it to the list.

Click OK to leave that, then click the blue specified folder and click New Folder to create a new folder called Spam Trap (or whatever).

Your rule description should now be:

Apply this rule after the message arrives
Where the Subject line contains '**SPAM**'
Move it to the Spam Trap folder
And Stop processing more rules

So, you should end up with a rule looking a bit like this:

Message Rule
Note 1: message rule order
Make sure your new rule for SpamPal is first in the list, if you have a lot of other message rules you use and als make your SpamPal rule end with And Stop processing more rules
Note 2: blocked senders
If you have a lot of blocked senders then it is worth Removing them from the list, as SpamPal will do a much better job of coping with Spam and removing the blocked senders will also speed up the processing of email.


::Top::

4. Email Virus Scanners & Firewalls

Specific instructions for using a variety of email virus scanners with SpamPal can be found on the main installation page

Some email virus filters want to sit between your mail program and your mail server in just the way that SpamPal does. There's actually no reason why they can't; you just have them up in serial so that your virus filter fetches its mail through SpamPal rather than directly from your mailserver, and then your email program fetches the mail through the virus filter.


::Top::

5. Whitelist Friends and Contacts

In order to speed up the processing of your emails and to prevent SpamPal from marking your friends or contact's emails as spam, it's a good idea at this point to whitelist all your important email addresses.

This can be done in four ways:

a) Use the pop3 automatic whitelist: this will whitelist non-spam email's that you receive on a frequent basis
b) Use the smtp automatic whitelist: which (if setup in 3.3) will whitelist all email addresses that you send out

Note 1: Privacy: smtp automatic whitelist
If you are using this, especially in a business, as this is recording all outgoing addresses, some people might view this as an infringement upon their privacy, (if you are in UK you need to tell staff of this policy before you start collecting data)

c) use the Add to Whitelist option on SpamPal's system tray: to manually whitelist your email addresses by typing in an address (or by using the dropdown box; to select from a list of recently received address):

d) You can use this procedure to automatically export your Outlook Express contacts or you can use SpamPal's Whitelist Email Addresses page, to manually whitelist your email addresses:
Note 2: Headers that the whitelist compares against
The whitelist function only looks for email addresses in certain headers of your email.

These headers are currently:
From:, Reply-To:, Sender:, Mailing-List: and Return-Path:

Initially, you will notice that using SpamPal makes fetching your email a little slower. This is because SpamPal has to check everything against the DNSBL lists (Public Blacklists) to see what email's are from a spammer and which aren't.

However, through it's Auto-Whitelist feature(s), SpamPal will quickly learn about the people and machines that send you lots of email, and adds them to a list of trusted senders. Because they're trusted, SpamPal doesn't waste time any checking the DNSBL lists (Public Blacklists) for them and so the more you use SpamPal, the quicker it will get.

There are more hints and tip on how to optimise SpamPal here

::Top::

5.1 Export your contacts email addresses

You can use this procedure to automatically export your Outlook Express email addresses, so that you can quickly whitelist your contacts which will speed up the processing of your emails and to prevent SpamPal from marking your friends or contact's emails as spam.
This completes the installation and setup.

::Top::