How does MailWasher Pro work?
MailWasher Pro works directly with your email server, exactly like your email program does. But there is one important difference: you can tell MailWasher Pro to delete a message at the server, without downloading it.
MailWasher Pro retrieves information about all the email on the server. With that information (some of which is also processed by MailWasher Pro), you can decide what to do with each individual email - download, delete, or report.
If you check your accounts with MailWasher Pro first, you can delete the email you do not want. Then, when you use your email program, it downloads only the remaining email, those that you want to read.
MailWasher Pro can be thought of as a "first line of defense" which weeds out junk, large wasteful attachments and potentially harmful viruses.
How do I start using MailWasher Pro?
To successfully setup MailWasher you'll need your email settings. You can get these from your email program or your internet provider.
You will need:
* Email server settings (pop3, smtp)
* Username
* Password
If you have difficulty finding these, you can run this small program and it will find all your settings for you. Click to Run Mailpv.exe (47kb)
Also, here's some details on getting your settings for popular webmail programs.
Gmail: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=13273
Yahoo: http://overview.mail.yahoo.com/enhancements/mailplus
Hotmail: http://firetrust.com/en/hotmail_pop3
AOL: http://about.aol.com/faq/openmailaccess
To begin using MailWasher, here's all you need to do.
To check email, don't open your email client first. Instead, just start MailWasher by double clicking on the desktop icon, or going to Start menu, Programs, then MailWasher.
The MailWasher program will then start and will tell you what messages you have waiting for you on the email server. In the check boxes, select whether to Delete the messages (if nothing is checked, the emails will simply be downloaded to your email client as normal), and then select process mail. Processing mail will remove the emails you have selected. Your email client will open and you can download the remaining emails as you normally do.
If you watch the video on the website http://firetrust.com/en/products/mailwasher-pro/tour (which is the same as the animated video when you first start MailWasher), it shows you how to train mailwasher and after a few times it becomes very good at recognizing spam. You just need to classify your email as 'spam' or 'good' to begin with.
What is spam?
"Spam" email is generally defined as an unsolicited mailing, usually to many people. A message written for, and mailed to, one individual that is known to the sender is not spam and a reply to an email is not spam, unless the "reply" repeats endlessly. Spam is also known as UCE or Unsolicited Commercial Email.
