Email Magician 2.0 adds a powerful Setup Assistant. You are strongly urged to use this Setup Assistant the first time you run Email Magician. Besides configuring the main areas of the program, the Setup Assistant has been designed to teach you about Email Magician while you use it: you will learn all about the program's operation while you are configuring it. In the future, you can access the Setup Assistant from the Help menu to the far right of Email Magician's menus.
Email Magician 1.9
Email Magician 1.9 adds a new type of filter, through the automatic creation of "History List" filters, boxes, and nicknames. This includes extensive options for management of the Eudora History List. See the lower right of the fully expanded Special Filters window for this options.
There is also a new Naming Conventions Preferences panel that lets you exclude certain characters from the generated names of mailboxes and nicknames. More new options in preferences include "Search for pre-existing box of same name" before creating a new mailbox (possibly in a different folder). This option is on the "Customize" panel of the Preferences window.
Email Magician now checks for the presence of a 3rd-party accelerator card (or dual processor) and switches to the alternate registration algorithm if one is detected. Formerly, the user had to expressly inform the program if an accelerator (or dual processor) was present.
Duplicate filter checking has been made quicker. There are additional duplicate filter checking options in the General Preferences. Registered users may now add conditions to the "Spam Special Header" filters. See lower right of the fully expanded Spam Filter Maker window. New nicknames are now sorted in the "New Nicknames" field. New mailboxes are now sorted in the "New Mailboxes" field.
Unregistered users can now write 20 filters per day (with the addition of the first of the new History List filters).
Email Magician 1.8
Email Magician 1.8 adds a new "Customize" panel to the Preferences window. This lets you disable the auto-creation of certain boxes and folders that would otherwise be automatically created by Email Magician. This panel contains an option to delete those items.
Also on this new panel are options to selectively ignore addresses in Cc:, Bcc:, and Reply-to: fields, as well as multi-name addresses, and messages sent to invalid accounts when generating filters. This can reduce the number of filters generated.
Version 1.8 adds an option in the Maintenance window to create filters for existing mailboxes that don't already have filters targeting them. This was designed for new users who may have an existing set of mailboxes that they have been manually filtering messages into by way of the Transfer menu or by dragging individual items. You can specify that boxes that have not received mail after a certain date are ignored, even if they do not have filters targeting them. You may also choose to scan for addresses in each potential box and take a specified number of top scores to make multiple filters targeting the same box. Only the "To:" and "From:" fields are scanned for addresses, and your own (valid) accounts are ignored.
Here is an example of setting a "top score" factor:
If "Top Scores" is set to 3, addresses must be in the top three scoring numbers of occurrences in order to be included as candidates for filters when multiple filters are made targetting the same box.
Email Magician finds the following addresses with a "Top Scores = 3" setting:
AAA@dot.com (20 occurrences)
BBB@dot.com (15 occurrences)
CCC@dot.com (15 occurrences)
DDD@dot.com (10 occurrences)
EEE@dot.com (10 occurrences)
FFF@dot.com (10 occurrences)
GGG@dot.com (10 occurrences)
------------------------------------
HHH@dot.com (8 occurrences)
III@dot.com (7 occurrences)
JJJ@dot.com (7 occurrences)
KKK@dot.com (3 occurrences)
LLL@dot.com (1 occurrences)
MMM@dot.com (1 occurrence)
NNN@dot.com (1 occurrence)
Filters will not be made for addresses occuring below the line because the top three scores are 20, 15, and 10, and the "Top Scores" setting is 3. Only the top three scores will be used no matter how many addresses tied for those top three positions. Thus, in this example, 7 filters will be made that target the box currently being examined. If the Top Score setting had been 4, then HHH@dot.com would also have a filter made. If the Top Score setting had been 5, then both III@dot.com and JJJ@dot.com would have filters made as well.
Email Magician 1.8 also adds the option to check for updates via the interenet. Simply select "Check for updates..." from the Help menu, and if there is a newer version available. Email Magician will give you the option of downloading it directly or reading about the new features.
See the Change History (in the More Documentation folder) for additional minor changes.
Email Magician 1.7
Fixed some registration and firewire problems.
Email Magician 1.6
Email Magician 1.6 adds more than 250 new spam domains and characteristics, mainly courtesy of the SpamCon Foundation (www.spamcon.org). The behavior of filters targeting the new (from 1.5.1) "EMM Possible Spam" mailbox has been set to only filter incoming mail. This allows you to examine your "EMM possible spam" box and the select messages to manual filter (command-J) into their correct boxes. You may even want to "Select All" in this box and execute the second stage command-J manual filtering. Note: The location of spam pre-filter blocks and spam post-filter blocks is now is now completely up to the user.
There is a new "Valid Accounts Filter." This catches email with "To:" or "Cc:" fields that do not contain any of your designated valid accounts (meaning your primary user(s), and any of your Eudora Personalities).
There is a new "integrity check" of your preferences file at launch. If a corrupt prefs file is detected, it is copied to the "EMM Backups" folder and deleted from the System:Preferences folder. Then a new preferences file is created.
It is now possible to set the destinations of the Possible Spam mailbox and the Invalid Accounts mailbox from the "Destinations" menu.
There were some problems with the option to "Delete Filters Targeting Empty Boxes" from the Maintenance window. These problems have been fixed.
There have been many other enhancements to the program, as well as fixes. Please see the document entitled "Email Magician Change History" in the "Additional Documentaion" folder for a complete list.
Information about Email Magician 1.5.1 is provided below for those of you who may be upgrading from version 1.5.
Email Magician 1.5.1
Email Magician 1.5.1 improves spam filtering and HTML filtering. Any spam filter can be designated to target an "EMM Possible Spam" box by prepending the word "possible" in parentheses -- (possible) -- to it's condition. These are identified in the filter list as "EMM Spam (maybe) filters." Where applicable (for example, when the phrase "Click Here" appears, "EMM Spam (maybe) filters" are automatically placed before HTML filters.
Spam definitions on the left side of the spam filter maker have been re-ordered, and the default is no longer to merge pre and post spam filters. The number of spam pre-filter blocks has been increased to 3, while the number of spam post-filter blocks has been decreased to 1. [Note that version 1.6 (above) changed this so that any of the four blocks may be designated a pre-filter block or a post-filter block.]
"@hotmail.com" has been removed from the spam domain list. About 40 new spam definitions have been added to version 1.5.1
Other changes include an extra confirmation for replacing existing filters. Also, all known obscure email address formats are now supported. The Main and Log windows no longer snap to an 8-pixel grid.
Some HTML filter exclusions were not being properly excluded. This has been fixed. Because earlier HTML filters did not function correctly, please manually delete all EMM HTML filters from within Eudora before generating new ones with Email Magician's Special Filter Maker (Normally, the Special Filter Maker would strip the duplicates, but there are no duplicates of the new HTML filters with pre-1.5.1 HTML filters). To manually delete your existing HTML filters, select them with the shift-key pressed, then press the "Remove" button at the bottom of the Filter window (in Eudora).
Finally, re-read the Information about Email Magician 1.5 (below) for important information about upgrading.
Email Magician 1.5
Email Magician 1.5 more than doubles the number of spam filters of previous versions. In this new version of YAV's popular utility for Eudora® Mac, spam filters test for approximately 1,000 spam characteristics that may be present in incoming mail, thus keeping your mailboxes uncluttered. In addition to these built-in spam filters, the program also offers Spammer Address Collection, an option that tracks spammers (up to about 1,250) who may be targetting you in particular, and trashes their messages before they even hit the other spam filters.
The main addition to version 1.5 is a major expansion to the number of spam filters. There is also a minor bug fix regarding Spammer Address filters that include a percent sign, a rare occurrence. Further, I have added an option to "Merge" imported "SpamDefs" files with the current configuration. This means that if you have made any additions to the Spam Filter Maker, you won't lose them by importing new Spam Definitions.
That's the good news. The bad news is that the changes were too extensive to build another tiny updater, so you'll have to re-download the entire package (don't worry though, it will "take over" your current preferences and registration status). This having been said, I've tried to add more hooks for coming upgrades in this version 1.5 so that I won't have to require a complete download again.
Also, if you don't mind replacing your current spam definitions, then all you need to do is download the new SpamDefs file which is quite small (about 20k). Keep in mind that in this case you won't have the merging option, and there will still be a glitch with Spammer Address filters that contain percent signs.
On the other hand, if you do want to merge the new spamDefs with your existing ones be sure to save a copy of your current spamDefs by clicking on the "Import" button with the option-key pressed (or by selecting "Save Spam Definitions File..." from the "Special" menu) BEFORE YOU RUN VERSION 1.5. Then import those using "Import Spam Definitions File..." or by pressing the Import button on the Spam Filter Maker. If you are running verison 1.5, you will be asked if you want to Merge the file you are importing with the existing configuration. Choose "Merge."
Email Magician 1.4
Exporting to FileMaker™
Email Magician 1.4 will export any mailbox to a FileMaker database.
Version 1.4 of Email Magician provides a new "Export" button on the "Existing Mailbox Info" palette.
You can quickly export mailboxes from the "Existing Mailbox" field by double-clicking them with the Shift and Command keys pressed. You will be given the option to strip html from the exported messages.
Email Magician's export option will export 20 to 80 mailboxes per second, depending upon the message size and whether or not the "strip html" option is enabled and the speed of your computer.
To import the resulting files into FileMaker, select "Tab-separated Text File" as the import format.
The field order in the export files created by Email Magician is:
To:
From:
Date:
Subject:
Message Body
Unregistered users can only export the first 50 messages of a mailbox.
Email Magician 1.3
Spammer Address Filters
Commencing with version 1.3, Email Magician offers 4 types of spammer address filters and quick solutions to their creation. These supplement Email Magician's current nearly 200 subject-based spam filters.
The main spam address filter is an intersects filter of automatically collected spammer addresses. The second type consists of know spam domains. Next, there are leading character string filters (these match the initial characters of spammer addresses).Finally, there are filters for inner character strings (these are enclosed in quotes in the spammer address field).
Getting started with spam address collection
Open the right hand side of the Spam Filter Maker palette by clicking on the latch at the upper right of the window. There, you will see a field that contains four types of information corresponding to the four types of filters mentioned above.
1) Actual spammer addresses (format: spammer@domain.com)
2) Spam domains (format: @domain.com)
3) Leading character strings (format: casino) note: a single word without @ or quotes.
4) Inner character strings: (format "xxx") note: a single word within quotes
Actual spammer addresses are gathered together to create a nickname called "Spammers" that is placed in your "EMMaddressbookNicknames" address book. A single "interesects nickname" filter is created to direct mail from these addresses to your spambox.
Spam domains ( @ plus domain name ) are used to create filters of the form "from: contains" that catch anything from those domains and place their messages in your spambox.
Leading character strings (unquoted single word without @) are used to create filters of the form "from: starts with" that catch anything from addresses starting with that character string, and transfer those messages to your spambox.
Finally, inner character strings (words in quotes and without @) are used to create filters of the form "from: contains" that catch anything from addresses containing those strings, and place those messages in your spambox.
Collecting Spammer Addresses
Simply press the "Collect Addresses" button to collect spammer addresses from your chosen spambox while you are in Email Magician. Note that these are merged with any items currently in your spammer addresses field. Duplicates are automatically discarded.
You can also collect spammer addresses while you are in Eudora if you install the collection AppleScript (press the "Install Collection Script" button in Email Magician to do this). Subsequently, an "EMM Collect Spammers" option will become available from Eudora's "Scripts" menu the next time you launch Eudora. Note that collecting spam addresses by way of this AppleScript takes much longer than collecting spam addresses from within Email Magician.
You can manually add addresses, domains, or leading or inner character strings to the spammer address field by double-clicking on the list. You will be prompted to use the formats mentioned above.
Also, option-clicking on the "Collect Addresses" button will let you collect spam addresses from a mailbox other than your designated spambox. This is useful if you keep a separate box for items that might have "sneaked" past your spam filters. Or, if you happen to notice that everything in your HTML box happens to be from spammers you may want to include all those addresses in your spammer address list.
You may clear the Spammer Addresses field by pressing the "Clear" button at the upper right of the field. You will be offered the choice to clear the entire field, or just "complete addresses" leaving domains, leading character strings, and inner character strings.
Option-double-click an item in the Spammer Addresses field to delete it. Hold the shift key down (with the option key) while clicking to transfer it to the Spammer Exclusions list (see below).
There are many approaches to using Email Magician's Spammer Address Collection features. One strategy is to allow spam to "build up" in your spambox (or trash, if you have designated the trash as your spambox). Periodically visually scan your spam box to remove messages that may have been mis-filtered, or, if you are using the trash as your spambox, might originate from addresses you do not want considered in the spammer address collection process. Then, use the "Collect Addresses" option to bring those addresses into Email Magician. Once you have brought them into Email Magician, there is no reason to keep them in your spambox anymore, so clear out that box in Eudora. Next, consider excluding some of the addresses (see "Spammer Exclulsions" below), and/or consolidating some of the addresses (see "Consolidating Addresses" below).
Spammer Exclusions
You may desire to exclude certain domains or addresses from the spammer address collection process. One reason for this scenario might be the fact that you use your Trash box as your spambox. Thus, not all the addresses in your spambox (Trash) might necessarilly be from spammers.
Addresses or domains to be ignored can be entered in the Spammer Exclusions field below the main Spammer Addresses field. Use the "@domain.com" format (without the quotes) to add domains to this list. The defaults provide some likely candidates for exclusion.
A copy of the Spammer Exclusions list is maintained in the Preferences window on the "Spam & Urgent Filtering..." page. Changes to one list will be reflected in the other list as soon as you exit the field.
Some addresses are automatically entered in the Spammer Exclusions field. These include:
1) Primary users (your primary account name or names as entered when you press the big "Make Filters and Boxes" button)
2) Addresses and domains listed in the "Never make filters for these addresses or domains" field on the "Special Handling" page of the Preferences window.
You may sort the Spammer Exclusions list by pressing the "Sort" button at the upper right of the field.
To transfer items from the Spammer Address field to the Spammer Exclusions list, double-click on the address or domain in the Spammer Address field while pressing both the shift and option keys.
Consolidating Addresses
One powerful feature of Email Magician's Spammer Address filtering is the option to consolidate a group of addresses with the same domains into a spam domain filter, or to consolidate a group of addresses with identical leading or inner character strings into a single filter.
To begin the consolidation process, double-click an item in the Spammer Address field while pressing the command key. Email Magician will compare the address with all the other items in the field to see if any possibilities for consolidation exist. If so, you will be presented with a dialog box listing what Email Magician has discovered. This will include the number of addresses with the same domain (if any), the number of addresses with the same leading characters (if any), and/or the number of addresses that contain matching inner strings (if any). You will be give the option of consolidating that address into a single filter of your choice. This will delete all the addresses from the list that would be caught by the new consolidated filter as they are no longer necessary.
While examining the Spammer Address field for candidates for consolidation, it may be helpful to switch back and forth between viewing the list sorted by account name or by domain name. Use the radio-buttons below the field to make this switch. One effective strategy is to go through the list twice: once sorted by domains and again, sorted by accounts.
Placement of Spammer Address Filters
The four types of Spammer Adddress filters are placed at the front of your filter list. They will execute before all other filters and thus speed up the filtering process considerably.
Note that only registered copies of Email Magician will actually write Spammer Address filters to your filter file, however, unregistered users can collect, consolidate, and exclude spammer addresses to become familiar with the process.
Using Urgent Filters
Urgent filters are quick and easy to make.
Urgent filters are fast, freeform, and very forgiving. They are great for people who want to force email needing immediate attention or response into one box for disposition.
Urgent filters execute before all other filters, work on incoming messages only, and place messages into the box indicated below. Click the box to set another target for the Urgent filters.
If you need to temporarily (or permanently) redirect mail that would otherwise be filtered into another box, Urgent filters are the solution. Urgent filters will put the information you're looking for right now into your "To Do" box.
Note that it is a good idea not to make Urgent filters manually filterable because when you've taken care of the items in your Urgent box, you can simply select messages and press command-J to move the items to their normal locations.
USAGE:
Enter one or two items per line; email addresses, phrases, words, or any combination thereof. Don't worry if the lines wrap.
Enter as many lines as you need. Blank lines are ignored
SHORT CUTS:
Single email address (any format): If you enter a single email address, an urgent filter will be made that triggers if the "from" header contains that email address.
Single word or phrase: If you enter a single phrase (or word), a filter will be created that triggers when the "subject" header or the body of a message contains that phrase.
Email address, comma, Email address: Filter triggers if each address appears -- in any header.
Email address, comma, phrase: If you enter an email address and a phrase separated by a comma, the filter triggers if the email address is in the "from" header and the phrase is in the message body.
Phrase, comma, email address: The reverse of the previous shortcut will trigger if the phrase is in the "subject" header and the email address is in the "from" header.
Phrase, comma, phrase: This creates a filter that will trigger if the first phrase is in the "subject" header, and the second phrase is in the body of the message.
Note that using a comma lets you automatically designate the message body as the search location in two cases. All other cases except the case of a single item on a line (in which case it is looked for in both the subject or the body) deal with headers exclusively.
In all cases you can designate that the second item be looked for in the body of a message by ending the line with "ß" (without the quotes). This character is made by pressing option-S. Don't worry, the ß will be stripped off the search phrase.
OTHER (OPTIONAL) OPERATORS:
<OR> Between addresses: Filter triggers if either address is in the "from" header.
<OR> Between phrases (or words): Filter triggers if the first phrase is in the "subject" header, and the second phrase is in the "subject" header
<OR> Between address and phrase: Filter triggers if the address is in a "from" header or the phrase is in a "subject" header. Note that the phrase can come first and the address second.
<AND> Between addresses: Filter triggers if each address appears -- in any header.
<AND> Between phrases: Filter triggers if both phrases are in a "subject" header.
<AND> Between address and phrase: Filter triggers if the address is in a "from" header and the phrase is in a "subject" header. Can be in either order.
<UNLESS> Between addresses: Filter triggers if first address is in any header, unless second address appears in any header.
<UNLESS> Between phrases: Filter triggers if first phrases is in a "subject" header, unless the second phrase is also in a "subject" header.
<UNLESS> Between address and phrase: Filter triggers if the address is in a "from" header unless the phrase is in a "subject" header.
<UNLESS> Between phrase and address: Filter triggers if the phrase is in a "subject" header unless the address is in any header.
Note: You can substitue a "|" character for <OR> and you can substitute a "\" character for <UNLESS>. You can also substitute the word <NOT> for <UNLESS>
EXAMPLES:
info@yav.com
version one specification
info@yav.com,beta specification
beta specification,info@yav.com
latest version,program specification
tech@yav.com,info@yav.com
info@yav.com <OR> testing@yav.com
testing@yav.com <OR> new documentation
new documentation <OR> current specs
new documentation <OR> current specs ß
current specs | new specs
current specs | new specs ß
new specs <UNLESS> optician
new specs \ optician
new specs \ optician ß
original specs <AND> original docs
new documentation <AND> tech@yav.com
tech@yav.com <AND> new documentation ß
info@yav.com <AND> tech@yav.com
Note: Click the help button with the command key pressed to copy these exambles into the Urgent Filter Maker field.
IMPORTANT NOTES:
Because of the way that commas are used above, any Urgent filter line with a single comma will be treated as described under the heading "Shortcuts." Phrases with more than one comma will be treated as a single phrase. Leading and Trailing commas are stripped off in all cases.
SCENARIO:
Suppose you've just published a book entitled "Email Addict." For the next couple of months you want to focus on requests for review copies and book signings. You've written other books so many reviewers known to you and bookstores already have their own mailbox. Rather than risk that such requests end up in their "normal" mailboxes or get lost in your inbox, simply set up an Urgent filter. Type the following:
review copy
copy for review
book signing
Email Addict,review
Email Addict,signing
Six months ago you sent out a story called, "Make Room for Ducklings." You haven't heard anything from any of the publishers you sent it to, and you've set up mailboxes for each of them. But now your getting anxious, and you want to be sure to act on a response immediately when it comes. So, use an Urgent filter to bring anything related to it into your Urgent box.
Make Room for Ducklings
A long lost friend that you re-encountered at your college reunion gave you her email address, and promised to write. You don't want to miss this letter so you make an Urgent filter for her address:
LongLostFriend@somewhere.com
Finally, your tenth anniversary is coming up and you want to acknowledge everyone who sends you their congratulations, but most of your friends already have their own mailboxes. You want email about this special topic to be grouped with all your other urgent items. Simply create an Urgent filter on the word "anniversary."
anniversary
Your Urgent filter list will now look something like this:
review copy
copy for review
book signing
Email Addict,review
Email Addict,signing
Make Room for Ducklings
LongLostFriend@somewhere.com
anniversary
Assuming that these items are the ones upon which you need to take immediate action, or that they comprise the most important news you are waiting for, all messages concerned with them will now be placed in your Urgent box or your "To Do List" box or whatever box you have designated for such things. Then, you need only check that box to see if there is any urgent business to take care of.
