5.4   Setting Up a Spam Filtering Drone

As described in the Correct All Mistakes section, you need to tell SpamSieve about messages that it misclassified so that it can learn from them. Also, the sooner you correct SpamSieve the better. This presents a problem if you’re going to be away from your Mac for a while, e.g. if you’re on a trip and using your iPhone/iPad or Web mail. With the normal setup, you can leave SpamSieve running on your Mac at home, and it will clean the spam out of your inbox, but aside from remote-controlling your Mac there’s no way to train SpamSieve.

The drone setup lets you run SpamSieve on one Mac and train it from other Macs, PCs, or iPhones. This setup requires Apple Mail or Microsoft Outlook 2011, and it’s based on a tutorial from MacMerc.

Here’s an outline of how it works:

• All the computers check the same IMAP, iCloud/MobileMe, or Exchange account.
• One Mac (the drone) downloads all the messages and filters them with SpamSieve. The other computers (your notebook Mac, your PC at work, your iPhone, etc.) are not running SpamSieve, yet they get a spam-free inbox. If you’re using an iPhone, you may want to turn off push e-mail so that the phone doesn’t notify you about new messages that would be put into the spam mailbox, anyway.
• If you’re sitting at the drone, you can train it normally using the SpamSieve - Train as Good/Spam menu commands.
• If you’re at one of the other computers, you can train it remotely:
  • If a spam message gets through, move it to the special TrainSpam mailbox to train the drone. Periodically, the drone will train the messages in this mailbox as spam and then move them to the spam mailbox.
  • If a good message ends up in the spam mailbox, move it to the special TrainGood mailbox to train the drone. Periodically, the drone will train the messages in this mailbox as good and then move them to the inbox.
• The Apple Mail drone checks the Train mailboxes whenever a new message arrives in the inbox. The Outlook drone checks the Train mailboxes periodically, according to a schedule that you set.

To set up the spam filtering drone:

1. Make sure that all the computers are set to connect to your mail account via IMAP, iCloud/MobileMe, or Exchange.
2. This optional step will hopefully keep SpamSieve running if there’s a power failure while you’re away from your drone Mac. Open System Preferences. In the Users & Groups pane, set Mail or Outlook as a login item for your account. Under Login Options, enable automatic login. In the Energy Saver pane, set it to Restart automatically after a power failure. (This option is not available on all Macs.)
3. Create two additional mailboxes in each account: TrainGood and TrainSpam.
4. Continue following the instructions below for Apple Mail or Outlook.

Apple Mail

5. If you have a single mail account, follow the normal SpamSieve setup procedure in the Setting Up Apple Mail section, with one change: in Step 2, create the new Spam mailbox in your server account instead of in On My Mac. You’re now done with this step.

   If you have multiple mail accounts, create a Spam mailbox in each account. Instead of creating one SpamSieve rule, create one per account. The name of each rule should be SpamSieve - Account 1 (where Account 1 is the name of your account. The conditions of the rule should say:

   Account Account 1

   The actions should say:

   Move Message Spam [the Spam mailbox in Account 1]

6. Download the Apple Mail - Remote Training script file. Open it in AppleScript Editor and add your account name(s) at the top.

7. Go to Mail’s Preferences window and create a new rule at the top of the list called Remote Training. The conditions should say:

   Every Message

   The actions should say:

   Run AppleScript […]apple-mail-remote-training.scpt

   After choosing Run AppleScript from the pop-up menu, click the Choose… button and select the file that you created in Step 6.

Outlook

5. Make sure that each of your accounts has its own Junk E-mail mailbox. This can be configured by going to the Accounts section of Outlook’s preferences and clicking on Advanced… and then Folders.

6. If you have a single mail account, follow the normal SpamSieve setup procedure in the Setting Up Outlook section. When choosing the folder in the SpamSieve - Move Messages rule, be sure to choose the Junk E-mail folder on the server (not On My Computer). You’re now done with this step.

   If you have multiple accounts, create two SpamSieve - Move Messages rules per account. The name of the first rule should be SpamSieve - Move Junk Messages - Account 1 (where Account 1 is the name of your account. It should say:

   If all conditions are met:

   • Folder Is INBOX (Account 1)
   • Category Is Junk

   Do the following:

   Move Message Junk E-mail (Account 1)

   The name of the second rule should be SpamSieve - Move Uncertain Junk Messages - Account 1. It should say:

   If all conditions are met:

   • Folder Is INBOX (Account 1)
   • Category Is Uncertain Junk

   Do the following:

   Move Message Junk E-mail (Account 1)

7. Download the Outlook - Remote Training script file. Open it in AppleScript Editor and add your account name(s) at the top.

8. In Outlook, choose Tools > Run Schedule > Edit Schedules…. Click the + button and create a schedule called Remote Training. The When should be Repeating Schedule with a duration of your choice. The Action should be Rule AppleScript. Click the Script… button and choose the outlook-remote-training.scpt file from Step 7.