Aug 13, 2014 SpamSieve reports: 60% of my email is SPAM; 98.7% SPAM accuracy in catching that SPAM. For a $30 app, this seems like an absolute steal of a deal for a problem that almost everyone faces. If you use email, I highly recommend SpamSieve. If you don’t use email, I’d love to know how you managed that. SpamSieve is an effective anti-spam plug-in from C-Command Software for removing unwanted garbage from Apple Mail, Outlook, Mailsmith, Gyazmail and other email apps. It learns what spam looks like and what good messages look like, using “Bayesian” analysis to improve its filtering and blocklist (which can be viewed and edited, if necessary). SpamSieve suggests using a ratio of 65 percent spam to 35 percent ham for best results. Because you can train SpamSieve en masse with existing messages, the program can do an excellent job of.
C-Command’s SpamSieve 2.6.1 is the gold standard of spam utilities, by which other utilities should be judged. It earns this high regard for a variety of reasons, not least of which are its accuracy and ease of use.
SpamSieve, which works within a variety of e-mail clients, including Apple Mail ( ), Microsoft Entourage ( ), Qualcomm’s Eudora ( ), Gyaz Square’s GyazMail ( ), Bare Bones Software’s Mailsmith ( ), Mozilla’s Thunderbird, and CTM Development’s PowerMail ( ), requires some configuration to get up and running correctly.
Although the SpamSieve menu includes commands for installing Mail, Entourage, and Eudora plug-ins, you must also configure your e-mail client’s rules so that they can access the AppleScripts that help SpamSieve do its job. SpamSieve’s manual includes easy-to-follow instructions for doing this, though a setup application would be welcome.
Once installed, SpamSieve’s training commands appear either in an AppleScript menu (Entourage) or within a program menu (Mail). When SpamSieve makes a mistake, simply select the incorrectly tagged message and invoke either the Train Good or Train Spam command to correct it. By default, SpamSieve will color-code messages in Mail to indicate their level of spamminess, thus making it easier to identify borderline messages.
Like other spam utilities, SpamSieve uses a variety of techniques for sorting the good mail from bad. It has a blacklist (called a blocklist in the program) as well as a whitelist—mark a message as spam and the sender is sent to the blocklist. Visual studio code download mac. Entries in your Mail, Eudora, or Entourage address book are automatically entered in the whitelist, as are the contacts for mail you accept. You can add, subtract, and edit entries in these lists as well as create rules within them.
SpamSieve employs a form of Bayesian filtering and can use the Habeas Safelist. This is a service that requires members to pass a rigorous audit of “best practices” to ensure that their services aren’t used for spamming. Members of the Habeas Safelist can then embed their membership in the headers of e-mail messages they send. SpamSieve looks for this header entry and gives messages that include it favorable treatment.
Spamsieve Review
Unlike other spam utilities I’ve used, SpamSieve lets you train it with groups of selected spam and good e-mail. If you’ve got a few hundred spam and good messages archived in your e-mail client, this helps SpamSieve become acceptably accurate within a matter of minutes rather than the days it can take to train other programs. It also supports both POP and IMAP e-mail accounts.
I like the fact that SpamSieve mostly works within my e-mail client so I rarely need to muck with a separate application or risk losing e-mail in transit between a spam utility and my e-mail software. (To work with the program’s address lists and rules or its corpus—the collection of words the Bayesian filter uses to identify spam—you will need to switch to the SpamSieve application.) SpamSieve is easily trained, and if you want to go beyond the basics and configure your own filters or edit your black- and whitelists, it allows you to do so without a lot of bother. And after just a couple of days of use, it’s nearly transparent to the user.
Macworld’s buying advice
SpamSieve 2.6.1 should be on the lips of all Mac users serious about ridding their computers of junk mail. It’s affordable, effective, easy to use, and as configurable as just about anyone needs a spam utility to be. While other spam software may filter your mail nearly as well, none performs the job as transparently as SpamSieve.
![Outlook Outlook](/uploads/1/1/8/9/118935366/847644215.jpg)
Bespoke large letter boxes. [ Christopher Breen is a senior editor at Macworld.]
SpamSieve mostly hides in the background, but you can check its work by pulling up its Statistics window.At a Glance
Expert’s Rating
Pros
- Easy to train
- Supports IMAP and POP accounts
- Excellent performance
- Reasonably priced
- Works directly within your e-mail application
Our Verdict
![Spamsieve iphone Spamsieve iphone](/uploads/1/1/8/9/118935366/921964732.png)
If you’re looking for the best Mac-based anti-spam solution, look no further than C-Command’s SpamSieve 2.7. The program offers highly accurate filtering, is relatively simple to install, and is amazingly easy to use, particularly with Apple Mail.
If you’re looking for the best Mac-based anti-spam solution, look no further than C-Command’s SpamSieve 2.7.4. The program’s filtering is highly accurate, it’s relatively simple to install, and it’s amazingly easy to use, particularly with Apple Mail.
SpamSieve works with a number of mail programs, including Mail (), Microsoft Entourage (), Qualcomm’s Eudora, Gyaz Square’s GyazMail (), Bare Bones Software’s Mailsmith (), Mozilla’s Thunderbird (), and CTM Development’s PowerMail ().
SpamSieve’s setup isn’t automatic, but it isn’t overly complicated, either. Regardless of which mail program you’re using, you first launch the SpamSieve application. Once the program is running, you can install either a plug-in (Mail, Eudora, Thunderbird) or AppleScripts (Entourage) directly from the SpamSieve menu. (If you’re using one of the other supported programs, installation instructions are found in SpamSieve’s manual.) SpamSieve works with both POP and IMAP accounts, and doesn’t require you to customize your account settings, unlike some of the other anti-spam tools.
After installing the plug-in, you’ll want to refer to the manual to find out what’s required to customize your mail client. In Mail, you need to create one simple rule, and disable the built-in Junk mail filtering. In Entourage, you need to create two rules; the other supported clients have varying setup requirements. The manual does a good job of walking you through the setup process, and screenshots make it easy to follow the instructions.
After setup is complete, you should get started by training SpamSieve with an assortment of both spam and non-spam (ham) messages. You train the program by selecting a number of messages and then using an entry in the Message menu (Mail) or an AppleScript menu (Entourage) to train those messages as spam or ham (a general reference to valid e-mail). SpamSieve suggests using a ratio of 65 percent spam to 35 percent ham for best results. Because you can train SpamSieve en masse with existing messages, the program can do an excellent job of filtering almost from the minute you install it.
SpamSieve uses a combination of methods to filter junk mail. A Bayesian filter analyzes incoming messages to determine whether they’re spam or ham. There’s also a blacklist (messages that are deemed junk automatically; SpamSieve calls it a blocklist) and a whitelist (messages that are deemed good automatically), and you can add and remove entries from these two lists if you wish. Senders in your Address Book, as well as those on messages you don’t mark as spam, are automatically placed on the whitelist.
SpamSieve’s preferences are simple; a Filters tab lets you fine tune (or disable, if you wish) the operation of the filters, and the Notification tab lets you change how SpamSieve notifies you of its activities, with support for Growl ([[3.5 mice]]) included. The Training tab lets you change how SpamSieve learns about spam and ham. The Advanced tab controls SpamSieve’s overall strategy—a slider lets you select any point between conservative and aggressive; I left the slider in the middle, and found it produced excellent results.
SpamSieve includes keyboard shortcuts for marking messages as spam or ham—select the message (in Mail or Entourage) and press control-command-S to mark it as spam, and control-command-G to mark it as good. Messages marked as spam are moved into a Spam folder, but they don’t need to stay there—the program has learned all it needs to know once the message is marked as spam, so you can delete them immediately after marking, if you wish.
Spamsieve Gmail
The measure of any spam filter is in its effectiveness, especially with false positives—messages marked as spam when they’re really ham. After my initial training, SpamSieve did a very good job with both spam and ham. While handling over 5,000 messages, only four legitimate messages were marked as spam; roughly a dozen messages escaped the filter and had to be manually tagged. Most of these, however, were early on in my time with the program; as its filters improved, the amount of spam that made it through the filter was basically zero.
Spamsieve Enabling
Macworld’s buying advice
At $30—either per computer or per person, which is ideal if you have more than one machine—SpamSieve 2.7.4 is fairly priced, and does an amazingly good job. If your ISP doesn’t do an effective job at blocking spam, SpamSieve will take care of the problem.
Spamsieve Torrent
[Rob Griffiths is a Macworld senior editor.]