Bayesian SPAM Filtering

One of the most important features of SPAM protection in your email reader is Bayesian mail filtering. This page hopes to show you exactly how to make this powerful tool help you keep your inbox clear of SPAM using Chaos Intellect.

What is Bayesian filtering?

Bayesian spam filters mathematically evaluate email message content to determine the probability that it is spam. Bayesian filters are adaptable and can learn to identify new patterns of spam by analyzing incoming email. This process basically works by creating two exhaustive lists of words (Bad AND Good) and then mathematically analyzing each incoming mail message to determine whether it's contents are more likely to be SPAM or not.

How do I start using it?

1. Enable Bayesian filters

Go to Tools and Mail Filters. The last tab on the right should say Bayesian. Go to that tab and check the box to enable the Bayesian filtering.

Because Bayesian logic is based on learning YOUR patterns, you need to help educate it. Our email client needs to know messages that are both GOOD and BAD in order to decide what each new incoming message might be. Your individual results should become more and more accurate over time as it learns your preferences.

2. Teach it to recognize the good

Once you have enabled Bayesian filtering, we highly recommend that you click the AUTOSCAN button.  Doing so will randomly select messages that are located in any subfolder under your SAVED MESSAGES folder. Since you probably only saved messages you thought were GOOD, this jumpstarts the learning process by teaching the program what you consider to be GOOD messages.

3. Restart the program

Upon restarting our software, you should see a new folder on the navigational tree named PREDICTIVE SPAM. This folder is the location that any incoming mail will be automatically deposited that is considered SPAM. We do this so you can review the messages to ensure that they are indeed SPAM.

4. Teach it to recognize the bad

Training your Bayesian filters is easy. By right clicking on a message in the main screen message list you can either select one of two related menu items.

• Bayesian Classify as SPAM - Typically select this option only when a message has been sent into the INBOX folder, but is a message you want to teach our learning database is SPAM or bad. It will learn that this type of content is bad and it will put this message in the TRASH for you.
• Bayesian Classify as NOT SPAM - Typically select this option only when a message has been incorrectly sent into your PREDICTIVE SPAM folder. It will re-train your software to believe this message should have been good and will automatically move this message back to your INBOX folder for you.

Please Note: You do not have to classify items that are already arriving in the correct folders. The fact that a piece of junk mail correctly arrives in the PREDICTIVE SPAM folder indicates that the teaching that you have provided is already working.

Can I override the filters for certain email addresses?

Whitelist

If an sender's email address is found in your address book, it is automatically Whitelisted, which is to say that it is considered to be good no matter what, and is placed in your inbox. You can also right-click on a message and add the sender's email address to the Whitelist, such as if you want to subscribe to a mailing list of some kind without necessarily adding the email address into your formal address book. The main thing to get out of the White List is that these addresses will be protected and will override any other mail filters that might otherwise take this message out of your INBOX.

Blacklist

Blacklisting is the opposite. If there is a particular sender that you can't get away from, that has content in their messages which is very similar to your good messages, but you want to get rid of anyway, you can Blacklist them and have any mail sent from the sender's particular email address is sent straight to your TRASH. The Bayesian filtering is based on content, not email addresses, so this may be the best way to get messages that say good things, but are from the wrong people, into your TRASH and out of your INBOX.

Download free trial!

One more thing - we give you a free trial of our software so you can see it perform in the real world before you plunk down any of your (or your company's) hard-earned cash. So if you don't already have Chaos Intellect, you can try out these mail filtering tools for yourself and see how it works before you pay!

Download the Chaos Intellect fully functional trial version by clicking here!