Spamassassin Spam Box

[mikemanor]

With Spam box enabled, spam is apparently re-directed into a separate folder or "spam box". Is it possible to view the contents of this box to verify that spam is being correctly identified, and that non spam is not being incorrectly tagged?

With spam box disabled, and auto-delete spam disabled, the "subject" in spam email does not seem to get tagged to ++++SPAM+++++ as suggested in the documentation.

I have spam score set at 5

How does this work exactly. Grateful for any ideas

[247h]

Considering the amount of 'technical advisors' that are regular contributors here I'm surprised no-one has answered you so far!

Q. With Spam box enabled, spam is apparently re-directed into a separate folder or "spam box". Is it possible to view the contents of this box to verify that spam is being correctly identified, and that non spam is not being incorrectly tagged?

A. First of all, to have the facilities of SpamAssassin available to any user account, your server must have SpamAssassin enabled and separately, for the Spam Box feature to be enabled. Providing they are and you have the Spam Box turned on, the Spam folder will not be created until receipt of its first tagged message and thereafter is viewable either by Webmail (Horde or SquirrelMail) or using an IMAP client — I prefer Mozilla Thunderbird but you can also use Outlook etc.

Q. With spam box disabled, and auto-delete spam disabled, the "subject" in spam email does not seem to get tagged to ++++SPAM+++++ as suggested in the documentation.

A. The subject only gets tagged if you set that parameter in /.spamassassin/user_prefs with the command:
rewrite_header Subject ***SPAM***
(or whatever other string you fancy, like [+++SPAM+++] etc.)

You should also check what Filters have been created in cPanel > Mail > Account Level Filtering and either edit or create new filters specific to SpamAssassin — the instructions offer this guidance:

Hint:To filter all mail that SpamAssassin has marked as spam, just choose "SpamAssassin Spam Header", "begins with", and then enter "Yes" in the box.
Hint:To filter all mail that SpamAssassin has marked as with a spam score of 5.0 or greater then choose "SpamAssassin Spam Bar Header", "contains", and then enter "+++++" in the box. (Note: if you wanted match a spam score of 4, you would use ++++. A spam score of three would be +++, etc.)

Hope this is helpful for starters?

[mikemanor]

247h

Thanks very much for your informative response.
It seems SpamAssassin was working properly - I just didn't know where to look for the results. I have now found the Spam folder through webmail - confirmed that everything in it was indeed spam - and emptied it. I will continue to monitor for a couple of weeks and then set to auto-delete.

There was quite a lot of spam in the folders of each email address, confirming that the percentage that gets through is quite low, and certainly manageable. My main worry was that I might be losing important e-mail, but I am not.

Many thanks again.

Mike

[DPS Computing]

I use the method that adds ***SPAM*** (in my case) to the subject line of the email but still delivers it to the intended box. Then I just review and mass delete all the "***SPAM***" emails in bulk. Seems to be reasonably effective.

I'll have to check my Spam score, I set it that long ago I have forgot what I set it to!