M
MacGyverNL
For the sake of giving as much relevant information as possible, this might
be longwinded. I want to disable automatic creation of junk mail folders.
Bear with me.
So I use Outlook to manage all my mail accounts. That's 4 gmail accounts by
POP, with a dubious mechanism to ensure synch between different machines, 1
ISP POP account I barely use anymore, 1 university Exchange account through
HTTP, and 1 Hotmail account through Outlook connector. Up till this week I
had no issues with the spam filter, aside from the occasional misplaced mail.
Then GMail, my main mail provider, rolled out IMAP... And of course I jumped
on the opportunity.
Now, for IMAP accounts Outlook puts the folder structure in a separate root
folder, instead of in the inbox of your personal folders. Understandable.
However, what I do not, will not and refuse to understand is why outlook
insists on creating a "Junk E-Mail" folder for every account. I didn't want
it, I don't need it. GMail's spamfilter is good enough and already HAS a junk
folder, by tagging mail as spam. GMail tags are translated into IMAP folders,
and vice versa. So now all my GMail accounts have "Junk E-Mail" tags in them.
And if that wasn't enough, I'm using a different language version of Outlook
on another machine, which displays the same behaviour, so I'm also getting
"Ongewenste E-Mail" tags.
First thing I thought of was disabling the junk filter. Which I did.
Wouldn't work at first, because it appears hotmail forces the spam filter
back to at least the minimum of what the hotmail account is on... So I tried
to disable the spam filter in hotmail (Or is it live mail now?)... No such
option. Just low, medium and high. Well, I'm sorry guys, but if you won't let
me disable my spam filter, AND mess up my Outlook settings as a bonus, then
you've lost a user. I'm in the process of migrating all my hotmail assets
onto a live enabled e-mail on a domain owned by me now...
So I removed hotmail from Outlook, disabled the junk filter (which would now
stay disabled), removed the offending Junk E-mail folders with a tool called
ffolder.exe (though my guess is it could just as easily be done by removing
the tags in gmail, haven't tried yet. After doing so I closed Outlook,
checked if the tags were gone in gmail (they were), and opened Outlook again.
You'd think, that with the junk filter disabled, Outlook wouldn't create the
folders, right?
Wrong. Every time I remove the folders, they come happily back to me when I
restart Outlook. I've been at this for 7 hours straight now, in my spare
time, trying to tell Outlook that I don't WANT its spam filter, I don't WANT
it's special folders, and I certainly do NOT want an application making
decisions for me that it thinks "are in my best interests". So if there's no
way to change this, I'm moving to another client.
Based on this rant, a few simple questions need answering:
-How do I prevent Outlook from creating the junk e-mail folders?
-If question 1 is not possible, how do I tell Outlooks junk filter where to
find the existing junk e-mail folder (in the form of the "Spam" folder in the
gmail hierarchy)? Will this suppress creation of a new one?
-Added bonus: HOW does one disable the live mail spamfilter? If it isn't
possible, then it's a lousy product at best.
Remember that these are IMAP accounts we're talking about, if that makes any
difference.
Thank you in advance,
MacGyverNL
be longwinded. I want to disable automatic creation of junk mail folders.
Bear with me.
So I use Outlook to manage all my mail accounts. That's 4 gmail accounts by
POP, with a dubious mechanism to ensure synch between different machines, 1
ISP POP account I barely use anymore, 1 university Exchange account through
HTTP, and 1 Hotmail account through Outlook connector. Up till this week I
had no issues with the spam filter, aside from the occasional misplaced mail.
Then GMail, my main mail provider, rolled out IMAP... And of course I jumped
on the opportunity.
Now, for IMAP accounts Outlook puts the folder structure in a separate root
folder, instead of in the inbox of your personal folders. Understandable.
However, what I do not, will not and refuse to understand is why outlook
insists on creating a "Junk E-Mail" folder for every account. I didn't want
it, I don't need it. GMail's spamfilter is good enough and already HAS a junk
folder, by tagging mail as spam. GMail tags are translated into IMAP folders,
and vice versa. So now all my GMail accounts have "Junk E-Mail" tags in them.
And if that wasn't enough, I'm using a different language version of Outlook
on another machine, which displays the same behaviour, so I'm also getting
"Ongewenste E-Mail" tags.
First thing I thought of was disabling the junk filter. Which I did.
Wouldn't work at first, because it appears hotmail forces the spam filter
back to at least the minimum of what the hotmail account is on... So I tried
to disable the spam filter in hotmail (Or is it live mail now?)... No such
option. Just low, medium and high. Well, I'm sorry guys, but if you won't let
me disable my spam filter, AND mess up my Outlook settings as a bonus, then
you've lost a user. I'm in the process of migrating all my hotmail assets
onto a live enabled e-mail on a domain owned by me now...
So I removed hotmail from Outlook, disabled the junk filter (which would now
stay disabled), removed the offending Junk E-mail folders with a tool called
ffolder.exe (though my guess is it could just as easily be done by removing
the tags in gmail, haven't tried yet. After doing so I closed Outlook,
checked if the tags were gone in gmail (they were), and opened Outlook again.
You'd think, that with the junk filter disabled, Outlook wouldn't create the
folders, right?
Wrong. Every time I remove the folders, they come happily back to me when I
restart Outlook. I've been at this for 7 hours straight now, in my spare
time, trying to tell Outlook that I don't WANT its spam filter, I don't WANT
it's special folders, and I certainly do NOT want an application making
decisions for me that it thinks "are in my best interests". So if there's no
way to change this, I'm moving to another client.
Based on this rant, a few simple questions need answering:
-How do I prevent Outlook from creating the junk e-mail folders?
-If question 1 is not possible, how do I tell Outlooks junk filter where to
find the existing junk e-mail folder (in the form of the "Spam" folder in the
gmail hierarchy)? Will this suppress creation of a new one?
-Added bonus: HOW does one disable the live mail spamfilter? If it isn't
possible, then it's a lousy product at best.
Remember that these are IMAP accounts we're talking about, if that makes any
difference.
Thank you in advance,
MacGyverNL