I’ve previously mentioned that I started to use Spam Sieve from C-Command software and I wanted to follow up with what is a very glowing report.
My email address is very public, so the amount of spam I receive is totally out of control. While we maintain spam filters on our servers, cranking up the strictness also means that we have a lot of false positives. The volume of spam has increased lately, and was just overwhelming; it literally took me hours each week to delete it so I could get to the good stuff.
As I was researching client-based spam filters, I came across Spam Sieve and some great reviews. I installed it, being very careful to follow the precise directions from the developer, which involved turning off Apple’s junk mail filter before setting it up. The results have been outstanding! I checked the statistics from Spam Sieve right before writing this, and I am currently running at a 99% accuracy rate and have filtered over 21,000 spam messages.
I continue to take a look at the spam folder to make sure I am not missing anything important, and when I was training the software, I would find an occasional message to train but now that’s a rare occurrence. Instead, I have an inbox with only the messages that are from real people—a dream come true and well worth the $30 fee considering the hours it’s saving me each week!
What is remarkable is that Spam Sieve learns and adapts to your email while it maintains a “whitelist” of your previous correspondents and also a “block-list” for the bad guys. When I search the Spam folder, the messages are color-coded, indicating just how “spammy” the message is. I have learned to trust those colors, so it makes scanning that folder that much easier as I scan for the red, orange or yellow messages first.
While Spam Sieve does not, by itself, solve the problem of the absence of spam filters on iPhone or iPad, there is a way if you have an IMAP email account to handle that, too. This was a great help when I left on vacation. I set my MacBook Air to stay on and left Mail open and active. This allowed Spam Sieve to do its work and I only got good messages on my iPad in Jamaica. Of course, I could not look at the Spam folder, but the geniuses over at C-Command even came up with a work around to move my Spam folder to our IMAP server.
If you are being plagued by junk mail and Apple’s junk mail filter just ain’t cutting it, I cannot give a higher recommendation to Spam Sieve, as I value it as an essential piece of software. I convinced my skeptical IT department to adopt it and buy a site license for all Small Dog employees. It is just that good, and will give you that most precious gift—time.
Spam Sieve is available in 1- to 50-pack licenses, starting at $30. Click the link above to download a free trial and purchase!