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| Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) |
What should I use for my killfile filters?
The choice of killfile filters is a difficult one, and will vary greatly from person to person. However, some general advice is offered here, along with some common scenarios. They will be discussed in general terms, and you will have to alter the specific details used. The descriptions below mention email specifically, but will apply equally well to news items if you have set the killfile to filter them (see this page for information on this.) Please think carefully before using a killfile filter as it may delete emails you don't expect it to. If you are unsure, please seek advice in the zetnet.support.zimacs newsgroup. In general, to enter a filter you click the Killfile button in ZIMACS, enter the desired filter in either the Subject or Address boxes, and click the Kill button. The filter you have entered will then be displayed at the bottom of the window.
Some of the filters discussed below use wildcards, which are special characters used to represent characters or strings of characters of certain types. Information about the wildcards available, and what they do, is available here.
I don't want to receive email from a specific person
Use the person's email address as a filter in the Address box (remember to click the Kill button after entering any killfile filter). Alternatively, open an email from the person, and right click on the author's email address.
I don't want to receive any email from a specific email provider
It is not uncommon to receive much unwanted email (or spam) from a specific source. As an example, suppose you received spam from different email addresses all ending @zetnet.co.uk. To kill all such emails, you would enter *@zetnet.co.uk as the Address in a killfile filter.
I want to kill all email from an email provider, with some specific exceptions
It is possible that you receive many spam emails from a provider, but receive legitimate emails from known users of that provider. Continuing the previous example, you might want to kill all email from zetnet.co.uk except email from address1@zetnet.co.uk, address2@zetnet.co.uk and so on. Firstly, follow the previous example to killfile all email from zetnet.co.uk. Then enter address1@zetnet.co.uk in the Address box and click the Except button. Repeat this for any other specific addresses you also want to receive. Clicking the Except button instead of the Kill button means that any email received from the specified address will never be killed, regardless of what other filters you are using.
I don't want to receive email with a specific subject line
Use the email subject as a filter in the Subjectbox (remember to click the Kill button after entering any killfile filter). Alternatively, open an email with the undesirable subject, and right click on the originating email address whilst holding the shift key.
I don't want to receive email with a specific word or phrase in the subject line
Unwanted emails often contain some specific word or phrase in the subject line that indicates they are spam. For example, you might want to kill all emails that contain the word "offer". To do this, you would enter *offer* as the killfile filter in the Subject box. Similarly, to kill subjects containing the phrase "special offer", you would enter *special offer* in the Subject box. Note that spam emails often use altered words to avoid detection in this manner. For example, the digit 1 and letter I (upper case i) are often used interchangably with l (lower case L), and 0 (zero) with o. You may therefore need to use a range of filters to filter out variants of a specific word.
I don't want to receive any email that contains foreign characters in the subject
Enter _Trap1_ in the Subject box. You should be careful using this option if you expect to receive emails in a foreign language.
I have a filter containing a question mark or asterisk (*), but it doesn't seem to work as intended
These characters are wildcards, and need to be treated differently to normal characters. They need to be enclosed in square brackets, so for example instead of the filter hello? you should use hello[?]
I want to filter out subjects that contain a string of consecutive spaces
You should use a filter similar to *[ ][ ][ ][ ]* in the Subject box. Note that there is a single space between each pair of brackets. This filter will kill any email with a subject containing at least four consecutive spaces. To change the minimum number of consecutive spaces required to kill the email, simply change the appropriate number of sequences of [ ] in the filter.
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