Client Setup for Becky

This page gives instructions on installing and setting-up SpamPal for use with the e-mail client program Becky!

If you have a Hotmail account, you may also want to see instructions on how to use the BkHotmail plugin (for use with Becky!) to access your Hotmail email's through SpamPal.

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 Becky is retained and the process is now complete. If not, i.e. this is a new installation of SpamPal, proceed with the steps below.

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All you need to know about extra configuration can be found here

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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.

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3.1 Change your POP3 settings

Select your default account and then go to Tools, MailBox Setup

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

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

e.g. if your original values were:

POP3 (Mail) Server: your.mailserver.com
User ID: fred.bloggs

then you would, for example, change them to:

POP3 (Mail) Server: 127.0.0.1
User ID: fred.bloggs@your.mailserver.com

Note 1: 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 to use port 1110 instead of 110.

Note 2: If the server name already is localhost

Don't worry; just add @localhost to the username and leave the server name as is

Note 3: If your POP3 username already contains an @

continue regardless; SpamPal copes with usernames that contain two @s without difficulty.

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 4: 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

If there is a need to change you POP3, SMTP or IMAP ports, then Select your default account and then go to Tools, MailBox Setup and select Misc:

If you are still having a problem, why not give this setup page a try

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Select your default account and then go to Tools, MailBox Setup .

As you are going to be using IMAP, you need to change the Mail Protocol to: IMAP4rev1 and then you need to tick the Connect on Opening Mailbox option.

Now write down the name of your IMAP Mail Server (e.g.. imap.yourisp.com) and then replace this with 127.0.0.1

Now add an @ symbol and the IMAP Mail Server Name, that you wrote down earlier, to the User ID box (e.g.. my_login_name@imap.yourisp.com)

Now you should check your emails; you should now notice that you have a new folder called spamtrap that was created by SpamPal, to store all your spam marked messages:

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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 Becky's SMTP settings, as follows

Select your default account and then go to Tools, MailBox Setup .

Now, take a note of your current SMTP Server, for example: smtp.myisp.co.uk

Now change the current 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 SMTP Server 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

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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

Select your default account and go to Tools and select Filtering Manager.

In the Header Box, Select Subject and enter **SPAM** in the String box

See below screen for how things should look:

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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.

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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) Use the SpamPal 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

5.1 Export your contacts email addresses

You can use this plugin to automatically export your Becky! 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.

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