Settings and Instructions
Installation
Download the correct installer package from the downloads page for your
system, and extract the two files to a folder on your computer. Make sure
Outlook is not running and execute the "setup.exe" file. The installer will
first ensure you have all required prerequisites installed (such as the .NET
Framework and the runtime libraries for Visual Studio Tools for Office). If your
system does not already have these files installed, you will be prompted to
download and install them automatically.
Once the installer has finished running you can start Outlook and configure the app.
Luckily, this is very easy and if you've set up your own o2 broadband
connection or made some basic tweaks to Outlook it shouldn't be any trouble. Learn how here:
Instructions
Once installed, you should see a new tab in the Outlook main screen (Outlook
2010) or a new set of buttons on the toolbar (Outlook 2007):
The buttons displayed on the menu can be configured in the settings, and you
may not see all of them by default.
The first thing you will want to do is to set up a default reporting profile.
Most people will only require a single, spam profile. Click the settings button
to view the settings dialog. Click on "Reporting Profiles" in the left pane,
which will list all the reporting profiles you have configured (this will be
blank when you first install the app).
Click the "Add" button. This will prompt you to enter a friendly name for the
profile (such as "SpamCop"), and the default email address to report to (for
SpamCop this will be a long address like submit.123abcd@spam.spamcop.net). Click
Add, and you will be taken to the advanced settings for your profile:
Report Address:
- To: You can add several email addresses to send reports to in one go in
the "To" field of the email. Enter each address one by one in the box on the
left and click the add (">>") button. To remove an address, select it in the
box on the right and click the remove ("<<") button.
- BCC: You can also add addresses to the blind carbon copy (BCC) field of
the report email in the same way as above. The report email will be sent to
these addresses but will not be displayed in the email itself.
- After reporting messages: After the reports have been sent, you can
choose what to do with the spam emails, such as deleting them, marking them
as read, or moving them to another folder in Outlook.
Report Text:
- Report subject: You can change the subject of the generated report email
by changing the text in this box. Most reporting systems ignore this, but
you may have to check with your reporting site.
- End report text: Some reporting services will reject email reports which
do not have a body. It is therefore useful to mark the end of the spam email
with some text such as "-- End of spam submission --".
- Message body: This is the text which will be displayed in the report
email's body.
Report Options:
- Ask for verification: If set, when you click the report button for this
profile you will receive an "Are you sure you want to report the selected
item(s)" message, allowing you to cancel if you have clicked the button in
error.
- Keep a copy: If set, the entire report email(s) will be dropped into
your "Sent Items" folder after being sent.
- Send multiple: If set, all selected spam messages will be sent as
attachments in a single report email. If you are having problems when
reporting a lot of spam in one go, uncheck this box.
- Use RFC822: Some reporting services like you to send the spam messages
as Outlook attachments, in the same way as dragging and dropping an email
from a folder into a new email does. If you are reporting to SpamCop, ensure
this is left unticked, as your reports will be rejected.
- Clean headers: Outlook and Exchange tend to add some funny headers into
email messages which can either cause the report to be rejected, or links in
the email to not be parsed. If you are having any of these problems, tick
this box. It is, however, not recommended as the spam will have been
modified before reporting.
© Leon Mayne 2010.
