SpamBayes Outlook Plugin

Thank you for trying the SpamBayes anti-spam Outlook addin. You can view this documentation at any time by starting Outlook, selecting the SpamBayes Manager option from the new SpamBayes toolbar you will see, and selecting the About button.

This plugin provides a spam filter based on statistical analysis of your personal mail. Unlike other spam detection systems, SpamBayes actually learns what you consider spam, and continually adapts as both your regular email and spam patterns change. There are no builtin rules, so anything you consider spam will be treated as spam by this system, even if it does not conform to the traditional definitions of spam.

Some time must be spent configuring the system, and performing initial training. Once this has been completed, you will find the filter amazingly effective and making very few errors.

Bear in mind that this is an early version, and there are plenty of things to improve, particularly related to the initial configuration and training process. Please bear with us, and see the troubleshooting guide should you have problems.. This is free software, so your help is needed - please see the main project page for information.

If you want a better picture of how the plugin actually operates, see using the plugin. Also here you will find information on:

Installing and configuring the plugin
Viewing the Spam score field.
Configuring the plugin for filtering
How you can help improve this free software.

If you would like to see some additional options you can set, please see the configuration guide. If you have any problems, please see the troubleshooting guide.

Using the plugin

As messages arrive, they are given a "spam score". This score is the measure of how "spammy" the system has decided a mail is, with 100% being certain spam, and 0% meaning the message is certainly not spam. The SpamBayes addin uses three different spam categories based on these scores to classify mail into one of three categories - certain spam, unsure, and good messages. Good messages are often known in the anti-spam community as ham.
Mail that is classified as good is never touched by this plugin - they will remain in your inbox, or be filtered normally by Outlook's builtin rules. Mail that is classified as either unsure, or certain spam is moved into different folders for future review.
There are three ways in which the system can get things wrong:

A spam stays in your inbox. This is known as a false negative. In this case you can either drag the message to the Spam folder or click on the Delete as Spam button on the Outlook toolbar. In both cases, the message will be trained as spam and will be moved to the spam folder.
Any message is moved to the unsure folder. In this case, the system is simply unsure about the message, and moves it to the possible spam folder for human review. All unsure messages should be manually classified; good messages can either be dragged back to the inbox, or have the Recover from Spam toolbar button clicked, while spam messages can either be dragged to the Spam folder or have the Delete as Spam toobar button clicked. In all cases, the system will automatically be trained appropriately.
A wanted (ham) message is moved to the Spam folder. This is known as a false positive. In this case you can either drag the message back to the folder from which it came (generally the inbox), or click on the Recover from Spam button. In both cases the message will be trained as good, and moved back to the original folder.

Note that in all cases, as you take corrective action on the mail, the system is also trained. This makes it less likely that another similar mail will be incorrectly classified in the future.

Installing and Configuring the plugin

If you download the installer version of this plugin (ie, you downloaded a .EXE file you use to install), then everthing is installed and just needs to be configured. If you downloaded the sourcecode version of the plugin, please view README.txt for installation instructions.
Configuring the plugin requires the following steps:

Confirm the plugin is installed:
Start Outlook, select your Inbox, then look at your Outlook toolbar. Just below the standard Toolbar, you should see a new toolbar with a SpamBayes dropdown button. If this button appears, then the plugin is correctly installed and ready to use. If the button does not appear, please see the troubleshooting guide.
Create Spam and Usure folders
Use the normal Outlook functions to create two new folders. These can be named anything you like, and can appear anywhere in the folder hierarchy you choose - however, it is recommended you call them something like Spam and Possible Spam.
Manually create initial training data
Go through your Inbox, Deleted Items and any other folders likely to have spam, and move as much as possible to the new Spam folder you just created. Try and get as much Spam out of your inbox as possible, as your inbox will form the initial set of good messages we train on. Don't worry too much about missing one or two spam - the system is likely to find them for you as we rescore your existing email.
Configure and Train SpamBayes
Now we have our folders setup with some initial training data, we can configure the plugin. From the SpamBayes button on the toolbar select SpamBayes Manager... This will display the main dialog, as shown to the right.
Select Train Now, and the training dialog, also shown to the right will appear. The Inbox will be the default for good messages, so you need to select your new Spam folder as the source of junk messages. Ensure that Score messages after training is selected, so we can see how effective our Inbox cleanup was.
Click on the Train Now button, and a progress indicator will be displayed as your messages are trained, and another progress indicator as they are scored. Close the training window to return to the SpamBayes window.

The SpamBayes Manager dialog

The training dialog

There are some additional options that can be set outside of the user interface - please see the configuration guide for more details.

Viewing and Using the Spam Score Field

A custom property named Spam is added to all Outlook messages scored. You can teach Outlook to display this field as a column in any table view, like the standard Messages view.

This takes some work, and has to be done again for every folder in which you want to display a Spam column - typically this will be all folders you are filtering, and your Spam and Unsure folders. Perform the following steps

While looking at an Outlook table view (like Messages), right-click on the line with column headers (From, Subject, To, Received, ...). In the context menu that pops up, click on Field Chooser. A box with title Field Chooser pops up.
In the drop-down list at the top of the Field Chooser window, select User Defined Fields
Below the drop-down, you should see a rectangular button with a Spam label . This should be automatically created for all folders managed by the system, but if it does not appear, you will need to add it yourself. To do this, perform the following steps

In the lower left corner of the Field Chooser box, click New.... A box with title New Field pops up.
In the Name: box, type Spam.
In the Type: dropdown list, select Percent. This is the third choice in the dropdown list. Do not select any other format -- it won't work.
The Format: select the first entry in the list - "Rounded". The Field Chooser should now look like the first image on the right.
Click OK in the New Field box. Now you're back in the Field Chooser box, with a new Spam button shown, as the second figure shows.

Use your mouse to drag the Spam button to the column header position where you want to see the Spam column. You don't have to be precise here -- you can rearrange or resize the column later just by dragging it around.
You're done! Close the Field Chooser box.

Creating the new field

The Field Chooser after creating the field.

Outlook's standard Automatic Formatting features can also be taught how to access the value of this field; for example, you could tell Outlook to display rows with suspected spam messages in green italic. However, for whatever reason, the Outlook Rules Wizard does not allow creating rules based on user-defined fields. That's why this addin supplies its own filtering rules.

Configuring the plugin for filtering

Once the system is trained an configured, you are ready to enable the filtering capabilities. From the SpamBayes manager, select Filters. From this dialog you can select all the folders that you wish to watch for spam. You also configure the folder where you want the certain spam and unsure messages to be moved to.
Once this is done, you simply enable filtering from the main dialog, and sit back and wait for spam! See using the plugin for further details.

Your help is needed!

This is free software. Please offer any help you are able to. In particular, contributions to this documentation are welcome!